Choosing Fabric for Office Chair Upholstery

A Philadelphia medical office undergoing a facelift sent an inquiry about the cost of reupholstering a number of their common area waiting chairs.  They were buying some new seating to fill the expansion, but wanted to re-cover their existing chairs if it made sense.  The cost comparison must have been positive.  They emailed back about getting specific about fabric.

We picked up samples of carpet, paint colors and the fabric on the new chairs.  We also knew they wanted some vertical pattern in the fabric, but not stripes.  With those guidelines we sent them virtual samples of 50 or so fabrics that seemed to fit.  They spun through the samples, selecting five patterns that were acceptable.  The colors were too vivid, however.   We sent additional sample images in more muted tones with the same patterns.  From this second group they narrowed down on four samples.  We had physical memo samples sent to them from the fabric houses so they could verify the color and texture.

They picked two.  Here they are spread among the color samples they had given us.  The flame-stitch has a vertical lift to it while the vine pattern has a subtle vertical movement.  Their challenge in this project was to use the carpet and the seating fabric to tie together a paint scheme that transitioned from the blue tones to the ecru tones.

By James Conklin