PART 2 – PERFORMANCE VELVET

I tackled painting these chairs myself, but for the velvet reupholstery we hired an expert (locals: Suely @ Pawluk’s Upholstery, Monroe, CT). But first I had to find a fabric. And what could be better than a velvet-lined rabbit hole to go down?! As a reminder, I have three children (the boy kind). I needed velvet I could wipe clean, like what we have in the living room. In the fabric world, this hearty, but beautiful stuff is known as performance velvet.

These chairs would be very light in color — a far cry from the relatively indestructible navy blue in the living room. I also want to USE them — have actual meals in this dining room. Bold vision, I know!

MANUFACTURERS

I did my usual reading of lots of blogs and whatnot, and narrowed it to a few manufacturers competing in the performance velvet space:

1. J.B. Martin
2. Nassimi
3. Pottery Barn

GETTING SAMPLES

To obtain swatches of J.B. Martin’s velvets I had to find a distributor. I landed on the fabulous and extremely helpful Roger + Chris website. They had a ton of helpful posts about velvet on their blog, and owner Chris Stout-Hazard even took the time to answer more questions via email.

Nassimi’s samples were available by directly calling the company. They mailed them to me at no charge.

Pottery Barn swatches were free and easy to obtain online. While I was at it, I ordered samples of their Everyday Linen and Basketweave lines, too.

Finally, I had a little field day ordering velvet swatches from ‘Mood‘ in NYC. This was a real Project Runway-meets-life moment for me (eek!). Two stood out. One for its Coastal French stripes, and the other because it was SO INCREDIBLY SOFT!

JUDGING THE SAMPLES

J.B.Martin:
I was warned by Chris Stout-Hazard at Roger + Chris that this particular velvet isn’t as SUPER stain resistant as the other velvets (like say, my Teflon-coated Toyota Sienna seats –truly miraculous .. and probably also toxic, but I digress). However, he said J.B. Martin’s ‘Milan’ line is tough-wearing, performs well and they use it on a lot of pieces. ‘Milan Cement’ was my favorite color .. with the runner up being ‘Corsica Parchment’. Corsica is more stain resistant.

Nassimi
Their ‘Prince’ line is more metallic and watery than I wanted. The ‘Gramercy’ line is a thinner velvet — low density or ‘pile’ in industry speak. The ‘Thompson’ line is thicker, but Chris confirmed it would be less dense than the J.B. Martin ‘Milan’ line I had my eye on. All of these are very stain resistant according to Roger + Chris.

Pottery Barn
The Everyday Linen line is so very pretty. Timeless. It lurked well into this competition of velvets. I wanted to be talked out of it because I was scared of it being difficult to clean and uncomfortable to sit on, compared to velvet. Chris surmised it would pill over time, and I jumped for joy at having a reason to eliminate it from the running.

Mood – various velvets
These were a lot of fun to order, but at the end of the day, I had no idea which ones were considered performance grade. I could have called Mood and attempted a conversation about the dozen or so I’d selected… but couldn’t justify that extra work for colors that were a bit outside the box (for this project). I let them go.

THE FINALISTS

Once I narrowed the pool to a few, I pinned them to a chair and analyzed them day and night — literally. With velvets, what’s light and beautiful at noon might look dingy in the dark. Having them pinned up is also crucial because the light hits the seat back (vertical positioning) differently than it does the seat (flat, and usually pushed under the table). This process led me to a crucial tip obtained from Roger + Chris: the correct direction to pin (and therefore upholster) velvet is when you rub it, the nap feels smooth both down and to the RIGHT. There was one I particularly LOVED, but only if it was technically upside-down.

THE WINNER

J.B. Martin ‘Milan Cement‘

Loading these chairs into my minivan for the trip home from the upholsterer was a giddy minute. I’d put up with them being ugly and out of place for seven years. Now they had a Coastal French look and fresh cushioning to boot!

I absolutely love the way they turned out using J.B. Martin’s ‘Milan Cement’. The performance velvet adds a bit of luxury and lots of dimension, even with a neutral color. They look different depending on the time of day, angle of lighting, even where you stand in the room. The cost was $36/yard (in 2021), and I happily ordered this performance velvet from American furniture manufacturer Roger + Chris.

That said, the first meal we had involved a red sauce … which landed on a seat. Of course. At the time, it didn’t *fully* lift out with spot cleaning (a teensy bit of dishsoap diluted in water, carefully dabbed). If you recall, I was warned by Roger + Chris this velvet isn’t as SUPER stain resistant as the other velvets (all of Nassimi’s listed above and JB Martin’s Corsica), and now you dear reader, have the benefit of knowing precisely what that means. BUT, nearly three years has passed, and I can no longer find that red sauce spot. So maybe the spot cleaning with the added friction of some usage over time, took care of the faint remaining stain?

THE COST

The total cost per chair was about $170:

$110 – reupholstery service
$20 – recushioning
$32 – fabric/shipping
$8 – paint/wax

You can find a lower quality chair for roughly the same price. If you want a well-built dining chair that looks like this, you can expect to pay at least $100 more .. some of them several hundred more, A PIECE. At least you know your options now — and have all the inspiration you need to save an old, unattractive set from the landfill!