elle decor dining room chairs
elaine nicholas: when we firstget a chair and need to break it down, need to takeit apart, it's actually very emotional. you remove somethinglike 13 layers of upholstery in doing that. down to the tacks and removingthe springs and the felt and the hair. and really what you're lookingat is a craftsmanship and an artistry that's maybe 50or even 70 years old.
in terms of the wood, itcould be 200 years old. so it's a connectionto everyone that's done it before you. you feel definitely part of acontinuum in that tradition. bob nicholas: it's like goingback 200 or 300 years to the time when it was first built. there's a sense of satisfactionin bringing it back to strength and beautyagain so it can be used for several more decades.
elaine nicholas: my nameis elaine nicholas. bob nicholas: i'mbob nicholas. and i run the businesswith my wife elaine. elaine nicholas: i lovemysteries, because everything is a mystery. you never know how thingsare going to turn out. there's what you think you'regoing to end up with, and oftentimes what-- somewhere along the processchanges, and
something else evolves. so much of the process of bothdesigning the fabric and making the chair is actuallya process of discovery. it's almost as if the designhas its own voice and from that point on, tells us what todo with it and how to shape it in terms of the pieceof furniture. bob nicholas: i've beeninterested in furniture restoration for about40 years. and as a coincidence, elainebecame interested in furniture
upholstery. and it was like a revelationthat we could actually go into business together withcomplementary skills. --to strip off the coveringand remove everything that constitutes the foundationfor that material. in the same way that every nick,scratch, and dent on the show wood is a reflection ofwhat has happened to that chair over the years, whatyou find on the-- elaine nicholas: i have foundthat i've always been drawn to
things medieval. but within that broad range ofthings medieval, it would be more specific. it would be the folkloreor the mythology within things medieval. i've focused on englishfolklore, probably because the archetypes are so appealing. it's one conduit to express myinterest in human nature and in human history.
bob nicholas: when you read adickens book, you're going back to the 19th century andthe way people used to live back in those times. and there's somethingfascinating about that. elaine nicholas: the firstmoment that i ever entered an upholstery workshop, you couldsmell the cotton felt that's used in the paddingof the chair. there was the hessian, thesmell of the hessian. the multitude of tools, thebolts of cotton cloth.
here were things that i couldput together, that i would enjoy spending the day with. and at the end of it,you could shape something really beautiful. bob nicholas: we are adisposable society. we buy things. when they break, wethrow them away. they go into the landfill andclutter up the planet. if you take something that wasdestined for the landfill and
you restore it so that it canlast for maybe 50, 100 years, you've saved it fromthe landfill. and it's really a formof sustainability. vanessa deleon: i'm vanessadeleon and thanks for watching spaces. be sure to check us outon our episodes, and subscribe to our channel. see you soon.