The night Jocelyn was resprung.

Time for a chair restoration update!  Remember I had been working on a little 19th century chair named Jocelyn (after my friend who introduced me to restoration and gave me the chair as my first project)?  You can see more about it all here and here.

Things have progressed substantially with Jocelyn and now she awaits the arrival of her new skin upholstery!  However, before I could even *choose* a fabric, she needed a lot of work on her interior.

The joy and pain of restoration, it seems, is that you never know what you’re going to find underneath the layers of fabric and varnish.  These are her insides:

Not pretty.

The real hope, as we dug down, was that Jocelyn’s primary support structure – the wood, the springs, the ropes – would be sound, and that she would need little in the way of internal rebuilding.  But, alas, the springs were too weak (my restoration guru gave them only five years to support my expanding butt)  and all of her guts had to be removed and replaced:

This was particularly painful because it took another TWO WHOLE CLASSES!  Besides which, the sound of Jocelyn’s screams as she was disemboweled still haunt me… *shudder*

But, Grasshoppah, no pain no gain.  Slow and steady wins the race.  Et cetera.

Now Jocelyn will live for another 50 years and I know how to respring a chair!:

An odd skill perhaps, but that, combined with my ability to sing and pickle beets, should surely secure my position as one of the last to be eaten in the event of a nuclear holocaust.  And really, that’s all that matters in the end.

Oh, by the way, the Netherlands/Uruguay World Cup game was playing the night Jocelyn was resprung.  Here’s the group watching it on a laptop:

Back to work…

The springs had to be covered by a protective layer of burlappy stuff (technical term alert!):

Then I was able to secure the old seat cushioning – apparently saving me another two weeks of classes:

Nice.

And here is Jocelyn!  Freshly covered and ready for her new upholstery.  Before I left for Montpellier I stopped in at the workshop and FINALLY chose a colour.  It hasn’t arrived yet but I should get it in a few weeks.  Very exciting!

My next class isn’t until September 20, but in the meantime I have bought a new project to work on after Jocelyn: an Art Deco wardrobe with a beveled glass door.  I’ve named her Roxanne (after the shop I found her in… and Sting’s whore).  Sorry no photos yet!

And The Netherlands won the game:

A good evening all around!