apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Not my cup of tea, honest, this looks like Barbie's furniture...

Hideous

absolutely adorable!! So bright and cherry and best of all UNPRETENTIOUS!!!

I think it is adorable!

Here comes grandma!

I wouldn't have a place for this stuff in my home, but I am strangely fond of it anyhow. I see it in a sweet, frilly bed and breakfast, maybe. It's a cute and fun application, but not my zen kind of style...

Of course it'd be in Harbor Springs!

Way too granny for my taste, looks like they scoop up all the good antique/vintage furniture in MI and upholster it in the quilts. Although, the 2nd isn't horrible, I wouldn't pay the thousands I'm sure they're asking for.

Oh, awful. The colors here are putrid. Precious, twee, and the dreaded "shabby chic". Maybe, maybe a bright, bold crazy quilt-upholstered chair would work in a nursery or child's bedroom. Or a country house. But to decorate your main living room with one of these chairs... it's not Barbie furniture. It's Barbie vomit.

If you REALLY want brightly colored fabric patchwork covered furniture go to:

http://www.squintlimited.com/furniture/upholstery/chairs/

But beware... it is very bright! It's not as granny-ish. Just very funky.

Ugh! Sometimes I wonder if we're being punk'd by these types of posts?

too each his own, but dear lord this is just plain ugly.

I think this could be charming with the right colour/pattern combo in the quilt being used (the examples are old-school quilting, but quilts today run the full gamut of colour/texture/pattern, and modern quilts are much more exciting and striking than these examples).

However, quilting cottons are much lighter weight than upholstery fabric--furniture upholstered in quilts would wear through extremely fast, unless this is furniture that never gets sat in (and what would be the point of that???) This is an idea that just really wouldn't work in real life...

That's a really good point, favabean. My parents have Amish quilts on the beds in their guest rooms, which are really well made, and my mother still has to repair a rip every so often. These quilts aren't even used every day and the still get wear and tear. I can't imagine that a quilt would hold up at all to being sat upon day in and day out.

Beautiful "bones" (i love the Eastlake), fantastic craftsmanship, but looks tragic---like a horrible traffic accident and you can't look away.

I used a matelasse quilt for a slip cover on an ottoman just a few months ago. It is a way to get a very washable casual slipcover for a really low budget. Looked great and a little less cutsey than these photos.

Darker colors and more modern quilting in sturdy fabric would be really cool, actually. It's a great idea, but the execution here is awesomely bad.

Bad colors...actually, REALLY bad colors... but a cozy concept if I ever get that lakeside cottage. I agree with trikitixa. Bad execution.

The quilts are okay, but can we please, please stop painting antiques glossy white? It turns everything into theme park furniture.

These may not be your taste, and they're not quite my taste, but MAN, are they well done. The wedding ring settee has such pleasing alignment between the style of the quilt and the shape of the piece. Again, not my syle, but creative and well executed. For that reason, I find them beautiful.

Those Squint pieces (what an apt name!) used fabric to cover the frame as well. Inventive!

I'll confess ... I am a quilter. If one were attempting a project like this as a DIY, one might oughta use ticking, canvas, or another sturdy fabric to support the quilt face, and incorporate some iron-on fabric stabilizer/interfacing if making it from scratch.

But I would LOVE to see other takes on the idea of quilt as upholstery. Hmm.

I could see this if it was a damaged quilt and you used the portion that was undamaged but otherwise I don't think I could stomach it.

Not even going to talk about these particular pieces - bleh.

I'm not entirely confident that quilts, or patchwork in general, is the best material to be using as upholstery. However, if you could properly reinforce the fabric directly onto the back of the patchwork it might work. The look might be nice with a more restrained neutral and monochrome palette. I do think that chopping up quilts is a little depressing though ... in these instances actually ugly as well.

If you want to try it out I would look for a patchwork top that has not yet been quilted (ie. without the top, filling and bottom layer all stitched together). That way you could iron on a fusible stabilizer without actually needing to chop up and un-quilt a quilt. Otherwise you are literally stretching a blanket over a couch and waiting for all the seams to burst.

That is a good quilting work but i don't like the fabrics.

We made a good quilting work visit us at


jmupholsteryinc