Guerrilla REupholstery - Hayshovel Chair collaboration with Eleanor Pritchard

 "Hayshovel Chair 2024"

Some time back I asked Designer/Weaver Eleanor Pritchard if she'd like to collaborate on a project with me and was delighted when she agreed. I've been usuing her fabrics for many years and over time we have established a good working relationship and friendship so I knew I could trust to her to come up with something interesting for me to work with. 

I found a chair on the street in Swansea and sent her a picture, asking her to come up with an idea to transform it.

She sent me this picture of a shovel she had seen at Compton Verney...

...and this picture of a hay cart she had come across walking in Suffolk.

Err... I had no idea what to make of this but having said this was a chance to "maybe do something very different to what you usually do" I thought I'd better keep quiet and see what happened next.

She then sent me these pictures of a maquette she had made in cardboard, saying "thinking of this as a wooden sided cart full of hay" and it all became clear.

Not a million miles away from this is it?

She also asked me if we could finish the wood with a chiseled effect to age it and "make the arms and legs a bit twiggy."

So I got the chisels and spoke-shave out and started work.

 I added leg extensions as the chair was very low, we agreed that these should remain visible and both liked that the they looked "almost like hooves."

 Next I replaced the wings which were chipboard and water-blown having been left in the street. Here I referred back to the wooden shovel and made some boxy shapes from hardwood from a wardrobe I had taken off the street some years before. This made the chair back-heavy so I had to reduce the front legs to stop it tipping.

 

This whole process is what I love most about the Guerrilla REupholstery idea - I'm an upholsterer, I have no training in furniture making and unlike Eleanor who I like to refer to as International Design Superstar, I have no real experience in design. I don't draw anything because that process doesn't mean anything to me. I take the Design Through Making approach where I just start something, see how it turns out and adapt when it doesn't work. It's good fun, you should try it.

Anyway I stained the woodwork in a mix of Jacobean Walnut and Ebony - we agreed we should go very dark with the wood in contrast to the multitude of blonde wood furniture that has been fashionable for a bit too long now - and could now start the upholstery process.

Here's the frame with a webbed seat covered in offcuts of blue foam and Ultraflex (recycled polyester). We decided that we would use products that meet fire regs (don't get me started on that) but in keeping with the Guerrilla REupholstery ethos were either sustainable or waste products. 

 The fabric is Eleanor's own Chillerton design. Initially Eleanor was thinking of using corduroy or something else with more texture but when we got to this stage it was clear that the ideal fabric to represent the hay (or straw) was from her own range. I used lots of my favourite 'hand-stitched to a piped edge' upholstery method to finish the back and wings because we had to somehow finish the back in wood to replicate the shovel. After much head scratching and consultation with local cabinet maker Jonathan Garrard I managed to wrestle a piece of 6mm ply on to the back by somehow bending it in two opposing directions and very rapidly screwing it in place.

Et Voila

Many thanks to Eleanor for the brilliantly abstract ideas, without which this would have been a very ordinary chair and thanks to Viv Collis for the final photos.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed making the chair, and hey, why not commision a Guerrilla Reupholstery project of your very own?