We have a maple Scandinavian dining room set my parents gave us as a wedding present. When the kids…read morewere little years back, the original seat fabric got all stained and nasty with milk, etc. We went to an undisclosed interior design place and replaced the fabric with marine grade vinyl and thick padding. The result was horrendous. The vinyl was tucked, unprofessionally with big seams/creases at the corners, like a do it yourself job. We didn't care at the time - as long as it held up for the next 10 years, we were good.
Come 2020 and that vinyl is getting annoying. Our butts stick to them, the chairs noticeably look bad relative to the rest of our furnishing, and most importantly, the kids aren't leaving have half their food on the seats.
Santa Barbara Design Center has been here for a while and I stopped in randomly on the way to Home Improvement. I was introduced to Michael, a knowledgeable and personable chap. I showed him an online picture of the original chair, and that I wanted to restore the seat to its original, sleek, sculptural and refined splendor. He said no problem, provided a couple of premium quality fabric books, and we were on our way.
We picked out the fabric and brought the chairs in. Michael commented "my god, who did this work?" 50% down and ten days later, chairs were done, with a message "come down and make sure you are happy." My wife and I looked, were pleased - Michael responded with "here's something that bothers me, I want you to see..." He flipped the chair over and on the bottom, the seat fabric was stapled just outside of the underside frame. You wouldn't see it normally, but from a distance or looking down from the side, you might. Immediately we thought the same thing, yeah, that's not ideal. He said it shouldn't be done like this, let me redo it for you, no charge. His upholsterer redid it, and boy those 8 chairs look great, almost better than the original! The seats came out sleek and wonderfully curved over the underlying pad. The fabric is comfortable, soft and elegant - couldn't be happier.
The interior of SBDC fills a warehouse space and contains just about everything; furniture, rugs, lamps, etc. The staff were COVID compliant, and Michael was a dream to work with. He has an excellent eye for detail, is easy to work with, and is an honest broker; I wish we had more projects for him!