Co-Lab. Winter 2013
A collaboration between Chairloom & Super Rural
Winter 2013
Contents
ABOUT
6 Co-Lab. is a collaboration between Chairloom & Super Rural along with photographer Rachel McGinn.
Molly andrews
Tracy Jenkins
Rachel McGinn
Co–Lab. Custom Make it beautiful, make it yours. Our furniture is completely customizable. Each piece is made entirely by hand with care and exacting detail. We can make a special piece for you in just about any fabric or size.
Custom pieces for a brooklyn school’s new library
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Winter 2013
Once was lost, now is found
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Spotlight on this holiday season’s projects…
A vintage love seat is freshened-up in Two maxwell solids
Spotlight
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‘I work primarily with fabric but I think of myself more as a painter than anything else. I work with layers and color and image. The cloth works as glazes.’ — Ilene Pearlman
Artist Ilene Pearlman at work creating our stenciled showroom floor
Before & After Take a peek behind the scenes of the vintage and antique Chairloom pieces we feature in this issue…
Antique love seat redone in an Elizabeth Hamilton stripe
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Contents
Visit us online‌ Keep up with all Chairloom & Co-Lab. news and products on the new chairloom.com.
visit the new chairloom.com to see all of our work
Erin Flett Erin Flett’s new line of fresh, affordable and sturdy indoor/outdoor line of textiles for Alfresco has been a huge hit with our clients.
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Winter 2013
Co-LAB.
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his holiday season, as our cover reflects, we are ‘struck by the universal spring
upward of the forest evergreens.’ — Henry david Thoreau We are thankful for the many opportunities we’ve enjoyed over the year to continue to grow and move forward with new ideas, products and richly exciting projects. We love going where our imaginations (and wonderful clients) take us! We have been inspired by so many recent projects that were driven by our belief that we should ‘…not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.’ — ALAN COHEN
Our pieces, both custom and newly transformed, start as the seeds of imagination and re-imagination. It is not easy to look at a well-worn chair or a sheet of raw wood and make the necessary leap of faith to invest in them, believing in the promise of the materials and an idea to enable a beautiful new heirloom to emerge. We find beauty in the textiles featured here, as well as in the opportunity to recreate and refurbish what was once tired and forgotten. Our custom pieces reflect simple design paired with functional, beautiful textiles. Whether old or new pieces, we begin with beautiful materials and raw potential. In these pages we wish to show you where our imaginations have taken us recently. We hope our work inspires you in the new year. Happy new year! Molly andrews & Tracy Jenkins
Co-Lab.
‘Making’ Requires a leap of faith Imagination has the right to feast in the shade of the tree that it turns into a forest. karl kraus
This Century Modern bench
This is a custom bench we built made-to-order for a client’s entryway. The legs are linseed-oil finished cherry and the textile is Batik in Bluefin from Hable Construction’s gorgeous indoor/outdoor workhorse line for LoomSource.
square frame benches
We’ve been wanting to make a set of these benches for an age! They can go from a formal entryway to the foot of a bed or into the nursery, and can work just as beautifully as a single–seater or a six–foot bench. We finally lucked into a vintage pair and a client snapped them up! The textile choice, an embroidered pattern called skittles in Blueberry/sky by Lulu DK for Schumacher is just perfect.
Co-Lab.
MAKE IT BEAUTIFUL, MAKE IT YOURS... What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. Johann Wolfgang von goethe
This Century Modern stools
A trio of ‘this century modern’ stools. we made this set (which are paired with two benches) especially for a brooklyn school near and dear to our hearts. We chose an extra chunky leg for the stools both for style, and more importantly for stability since they are meant for small children.
This Century Modern bench
One of two chair–Height benches we made especially for a Brooklyn school. The set of five benches are now installed in the school’s burgeoning new library and meeting space. Hable Construction’s workhorse Big Beads indoor/outdoor textiles were the perfect choice, offering a bright palette of colors & impressive durability.
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his past fall we designed and built a set of five custom benches for a Brooklyn school that is very dear to our hearts. The set is now beautifully settled in the school’s special new library and kindergarten meeting space.
1. The legs are white oak which we selected for its sturdiness & natural beauty. We finished the wood simply with non-toxic linseed oil.
2. Hable Construction’s workhorse Big Beads indoor/outdoor textiles were the perfect choice, offering a bright palette of colors & impressive durability.
3. Our amazing carpenter, Dave Barnes, masterfully bent a sheet of plywood to create the small circular bench.
4. Dave advised about proportion to make sure each piece was less likely to tip when very actively sat upon by the students.
5. We had so much fun pairing the bright colors together to create contrast cording and buttons!
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6. We chose an extra chunky leg for the low benches both for style, and more importantly for stability.
7. The contrast cording ties the set together and makes it extra fun.
8. The first student to see (and Try out) the benches declares the ‘triangle one!’ to be her favorite.
9. The finished set as seen in the school’s library-to-be.
10. The complete set in our studio before they headed out to Brooklyn for delivery. 9
This Century Modern bench
The second of two chair–height benches we made for our favorite brooklyn school. The legs are white oak, which we selected for its sturdiness & natural beauty. We finished the wood simply with non-toxic linseed oil. The contrast cording added an extra touch of whimsy for this set.
traditional over-sized ottoman
custom over-sized ottoman. Our client came to us with a photograph of a not-quite-right ready-made piece she was considering. We worked together to make something that was exactly right, and we built and upholstered this piece from the ground up, working together to source the right materials and create a piece with the exact scale and details our client was after.
storage ottomans
A new heirloom. Our client came to us with an idea and a pair of gorgeous kilim rugs. We worked together to make a set of custom-built, upholstered storage ottomans which were made exactly to our client’s specifications. We can’t believe how beautifully this pair turned out.
Chairloom
renew reuse recycle
ENJOY!
Stretch out my life and pick the seams out. Mumford & Sons
The beginning is always today. Mary shelley
Antique love seat in elizabeth Hamilton
This is the perfect love seat! We sourced this piece and had it available for sale ‘as is’ for a long-seeming little while. We waited impatiently for a client with vision to come along and snap it up — We couldn’t wait to see it redone! The love seat’s beautifully carved legs were formerly painted pale green — A thorough sanding took care of that and now the beautiful piece is decked out in an Elizabeth Hamilton hand screen printed linen. What a stunner!
Color and pattern
This vintage bergere armchair with perfect caning cleaned up beautifully. Our client purchased the chair from us ‘as is’ and was able to See beyond the chair’s formerly worn and outdated upholstery. We redid it in a cheery, graphic blue and white woven textile from the wonderfully versatile line John Robshaw developed for Duralee.
Vintage love seat in Maxwell solids
This sweet love seat is a mid-century interpretation of a 1920s design. We fell in love with the feminine curved lines which are surprisingly paired with mid-century geometric legs. We had this available for sale ‘as is’, and our client selected a duo of solids by Maxwell Fabrics follwing its purchase. We love the way the light contrast cording and buttons look against the graphic blue.
Ball foot bench in JOsef Frank
This antique ball foot bench was a favorite of ours! We sourced it a few months ago and had it available for sale ‘as is’. Our client purchased it and selected one of Molly’s all-time favorite textiles, Manhattan — a vintage Josef frank design, for the redo.
8-Foot tiger wood bench in Hable Construction for Loomsource
Our client’s antique heirloom bench which once belonged to her grandmother. We replaced the damaged caning with an upholstered seat. the textile is Bimini in Baywater, another choice from Hable Construction’s gorgeous indoor/outdoor workhorse line for LoomSource.
vintage swivel pair
This pair of swivel tub chairs have such great proportions. We loved the low backs and wide seats when they first came in. Our client purchased them and selected an Erin Flett indoor/outdoor textile that is fresh and up for heavy usage.
In the SPOTLIGHT‌
ILENE Pearlman
A custom quilted collage textile art piece Ilene made especially for Chairloom
In the SPOTLIGHT…
ILENE Pearlman
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rtist Ilene Pearlman writes, ‘I work primarily with fabric but I think of myself
more as a painter than anything else. I work with layers and color and image. The cloth works as glazes.’ Ilene is Chairloom kindred spirit— she makes beautifully realized textile collages combining layers of cloth, image and text, and she is also an avid antique and vintage furniture collector. When we moved into our new shop last January, we loved the beautifully worn wood floors, but we knew they had to be varnished to keep down the dust and dirt that could not be cleaned out of their surface. We were able to stop the landlord from sanding and refinishing the floors and talked to Ilene about working with us to create a stencil
Ilene Pearlman
pattern to paint throughout the showroom, enabling the raw beauty of the damaged wood to be preserved. Ilene created stencil forms from scavenged pieces of corrugated cardboard and created the overall pattern by intuition as she worked. Ilene said, ‘with each application, the space took on a life of its own and dictated the positioning of the next shape.’ Ilene worked with primer that she applied with a paint roller in layers until she felt she had achieved the right density of paint. In all it took a little over one week from start to finish: three days for Ilene to design and craft her incredible stencil forms, two days to paint and two days to polyurethane the entire floor surface.
So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute... Give your approval to all you cannot understand... Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years... Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.... Practice resurrection. Wendell Berry, The Country of Marriage
A peek behind the curtain
before & After
A
t Chairloom we pride ourselves on falling in love with furniture frames,
shapes and lines. An unattractive first impression does not prevent us from seeing a positive, potentially gorgeous future for the pieces of furniture we acquire. We know quality and potential when we see it and we love working with clients who are willing to take a leap of faith with a reupholstery project. A wide range of textile choices in combination with unique furniture give our clients the opportunity to be the artist in the recreation of our pieces (or theirs). We strive to achieve just the right level of comfort and design detail with all of the elements of each piece down to the foam or down cushions, tacks, tufting or finish and stain.
BEFORE John Robshaw for duralee 15461–193
After
BEFORE Maxwell Fabrics Gig Harbour in summer sky & vanilla
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BEFORE Svensk Tenn / josef Frank Manhattan
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BEFORE Hable Construction for Loomsource Bimini in baywater
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BEFORE erin flett for alfresco croquet in vintage teal
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BEFORE Elizabeth hamilton canvas stripe in Harvest
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BEFORE Lulu dk for schumacher Skittles in blueberry/ sky
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Refreshed & reinvented
online
Please drop by the new chairloom site to keep up with our news, favorite textiles, projects, products, before & afters, and inventory!
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