Our Retro Armchairs - Second Lease Of Life

Some months ago, we got inspired by an exact same armchair we saw in one of my fave rehabbed furniture shops. Mum has offered me her two 1960's teak armchairs with the sad and tired lumpy cushions. I never thought much about those "ugly chairs" until recently. Wow, there is a lot of life in these chairs once you give them a wipe down, a light sanding and a polish. Then get some new cushions made with snazzy fabric.

I checked out people who could do the sand and polish job and found a man who would do them for $50 a chair. Next we checked out cushion makers and cushion cover makes. These cost an awful lot for really boring fabric. We then decided we would outsource the job across the border, actually quite far up north up the border, to Penang actually. It helped that we have got relatives who were resourceful and knew where to get everything and anything. They found us a cushion maker and a seamstress and with the exchange rate so favourable, we saved about 50% by getting these done in Penang. We bought the fabric we like from Ikea, had them brought over by a cousin who was in Singapore on holidays, with the exact measurements and hand-drawn instructions. Then voila! They were made in a few weeks' time.

Collecting them took a bit longer. We had to wait for our next trip to Penang because the 4 cushions were heavy and no relatives were driving out to Singapore. In any case, as we haven't got the chairs transported over to our new place, we didn't really need the cushions yet. We finally collected them last month while on holiday. Today we finally completed the second part of our move and the movers brought the rest of our stuff over from mum's place. It wasn't as much as we feared.

The cushions finally met the armchairs. All was well. We are happy.