apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

You should have a few weeks left on your credit card's warranty. Call AmEx, Visa...whomever to get that ball/claim rolling before the warranty runs out.

Hmmm, you might not be able to do anything about your chairs, but I think that you might have saved many AT readers a lot of money. What yucky customer service.

Gubi chairs are now off my shopping list!

I am having an equally bad experience with Gubi right now -- they are extremely late in delivering our order and totally unapologetic. Tempted to cancel...

I think going through your credit card warranty is a good route.

Interesting that you heard that the fabric "shrunk" -- how does fabric spontaneously shrink? Looking at the photo I assumed the opposite -- that as people used the chair their rear ends over time STRETCHED the fabric in the place where the back meets the seat. When you get up and the foam can again expand, there might be left behind a small 'bubble' of fabric that is actually just stretched out. Kind of like saggy knees on tight jeans :). I would assume that getting it re-upholstered would fix this, especially if you could get some kind of stretchy fabric to put on.

Throw pillow.

this is possibly a terrible idea...could glue be injected (finally a reason to treat the junkie down the street to dinner) behind the fabric to tack it back? OK, I said it was a bad idea. I'm not familiar with the fabric on the chair so I don't know how dense the weave is...

Thanks for all the great feedback so far!! So the glue injection idea, I had that too, but the All Furniture Services guy said, "no, can't inject the glue because it will dry with hard spots". The reason he said the fabric shrunk, is that it is still adhered to the foam, so as the fabric shrunk it pulled itself and the foam away from the wood. In re: throw pillow, unfortunately its a dining chair, so you'd have to remove it to sit, and then the bubbles would be unmasked!!

Try heating the fabric area with light heat of a hair dryer and smooth it out with your hand. I had a similar issue with a Womb chair of mine and that worked well.

Good luck

Wait - if the fabric is still adhered to the foam and the bubble consists of both foam and fabric buckling up from the wood, then why would injecting glue deep - between the foam and wood - not work? Since the dried glue would be beneath the foam, it would not matter if it dried somewhat unevenly, no?

I would just be careful not to inject so much that it soaks up through the foam and freezes it in a compressed state.

I have two chairs with the same problem. They're vintage upholstered Herman Miller fiberglass shell chairs. I'm planning to try the glue injection idea, which the architect that I bought them from suggested I do. I ordered syringes from http://antiquesupply.com/ a few days ago. I'm going to use a thick glue in hopes that it won't bleed through the fabric. I'll let you know how it works out!

Is the fabric wool? If it is wool, the hair dryer idea will work beautifully. Wool is practically elastic and can be shaped with heat and steam. That fact is the basis of traditional hand tailored men's suits. That is how you get the right roll on the collar and a shapely sleeve cap.

If this were a US company, I'd say "letter to the Attorney general," which has always fixed my problems with bad business practices. I'd go back to the store and make a stink. They can at least give you store credit--if they ever want you to buy anything from them again. I agree with Subway Knitter, I now know what I'll NEVER buy!

Listen to the upholsterer, do not inject glue into that seat. In creating the seat, the manufacturer sprayed contact cement onto the foam cushion of the seat. Then carefully applied the fabric to the foam, so that the fabric adhered perfectly to the shape of the seat. This upholstery method makes for beautiful curvaceous furniture, but is not durable. Over time as people sit in the seat, the movement of foam and fabric delaminate the fabric from the foam creating the bubbles.

If you inject glue into the seat, no matter how minute, you will likely end up with glue nodules under the fabric. Attempts to stretch the fabric out will likely result in the bubble becoming a wrinkle. The only way to really cure this problem is to have the seat reupholstered or have the existing upholstery modified by a professional upholsterer to prevent or camouflage delamination in the chair's highest stress areas. If you choose to reupholster, the fabric should be applied to the chair differently (no glue) so that this problem is avoided.

Christine (the one in DC) :

I use the exact same phrase and it always solves my problems too!

Chance are this is the result of steam cleaning which likely compromised the bond that held the fabric to the foam cushioning. The upside is that the glue is still there it's since dried and is no longer stuck to the fabric. No amount of weight can make it sticky again but if you were to perhaps use a low iron over a cotton cloth you could heat up the area making the glue viscous and sticky again and then try applying weight hoping that the reheated glue will readhere to the fabric. I can't guarantee results but if that doesn't work you're looking at a reupholstery cost of at least a couple hundred bucks.