This beautifully carved antique settee is in the Eastlake style and could have been manufactured by Jacques and Hay here in Toronto, Canada. Jacques and Hay had their first factory at King and Bay in 1835. In the 1870s, they had a six acre factory employing 500 people located where Union Station now stands. Jacques […]
(with my apologies to Dickens…) “Nothing that we reupholster, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.” ― Julie James, Bespoke Upholstery with inspiration from Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities Our story begins during a solo bike ride on the south east side of Toronto when a historian and […]
An upholstery shop is not the Valley of the Kings, but I still feel like Indiana Jones when I uncover the history of a chair. Stripping a chair before reupholstering it is like excavating a site: removing layers of fabric, padding, staples, decomposing burlap, and sagging webbing. As the stripping process is carried out, I assess the […]
Bespoke Life 