Most folk who live in Brighton UK know about Shabitat – Home of Magpie Recycling. Treasure trove and bargain hunters paradise. I came across some battered old foot-stall cubes in there a while back. They were upholstered in faux leather, that always starts peeling after a while. But they had potential so for £2 each I snapped them up.
They then gathered dust at my workshop for a while until I finally decided to give them the facelift they wanted. Compare to the armchairs and sofas I have been doing lately, I thought they would be a fairly straight forward job. But things always takes longer than you think right?
I had some velvet off-cuts from my patchwork chairs I upholstered a while back, which were just enough in the yummiest colours to wrap these cubes..
In preparation for the festival season we always try to stock up on one of our staples, the upcycled acid smiler. We use 100% cotton salvage sweatshirts or high quality wool jumpers. Each circle, eyes and mouth are then hand cut from leftover jumpers and fabrics and machine stitched in place. No print here! Each one is hence a complete one off.
Equally loved by old rave dads as well as young and hip millennials like Satya here. You can have your very own made by sending us your jumper that you want embellished or get in touch to see what we currently have in stock.
Looking at my previous armchair post, it was nearly three years ago I upholstered one of these. Well overdue! I found a bag of ready cut pieces of material from the last chair, added a few new colours into it, mainly all from vintage velvet curtains.
I thought people would be over patchwork armchairs by now but it seems they still fly off the shelves! This one has already found a happy home in Saltdean.
Need one in your life made in your favourite colours? Get in touch
Have you ever been searching high and low to find that very specific piece of furniture and eventually you find something that is close, but not perfect? Do you go for second best or try to find a way to make it what you want?
Sian wanted a corner sofa for her flat. Something comfortable that you could fully stretch out on. Preferably in vibrant but earthy colours. She found this in Shabitat. Comfortable yes, stylish and vibrant, not so.
Structurally it was in a good condition and she didn’t mind the brown, so I suggested we could just recover the seating covers and the scatter cushions to create the look she wanted.
I didn’t have enough material of what she was looking for at my studio so I recommended the Fabric Warehouse in Kemptown-Brighton. An amazing fabric shop with a quirky owner that knows his stuff and will try to guess your star-sign and probably get it right!
This is what she came back with. A thick stripy weave of jute in camel, purple and pink. Looks better than it sounds indeed.
And he had just enough of it, so meant to be right!
The vibrant fabric paired really well with the sofas earthy brown body and also with her pink feature wall. Three seat , two back and three scatter cushions later, voila! What a transformation!
If your sofa could do with a facelift you know where to find me!
I couldn’t resist to make another one! Had all these gorgeous bits of velvet left from the wing back armchair project that I wanted to use and a tub chair came into Shabitat this week so perfect timing! Its up there with my favourites this one. I do have some more of this velvet left so if you want a tub chair in these colours its actually possible. Get in touch for more information.