Jens Risom Lounge Chair: before & after

Jens Risom is a Danish American designer, born in Copenhagen, and one of the first designers to introduce Scandinavian design to the United States. He studied at the Copenhagen School of Industrial Arts & Design, where he was classmates with Hans Wegner (designer of the Papa Bear Chair, among others).

After teaming with Knoll in 1941, they launched the Hans Knoll Furniture Company with 15 pieces of the '600' line, designed by Risom. These pieces included armchairs, stools and lounge chairs made from cedar and surplus webbing, and which have become design classics in the years since.

After the war, he started his own design firm, Jens Risom Design, and his reputation continued to grow.  Luckily for us all, these pieces are still available and sold through Knoll. 

This is the armless lounge chair (it can also be purchased with arms), and the frame is maple with a clear finish. All the joints are mortise & tenon constructed. Here is the before photo:

And after we refreshed the frame & replaced the webbing:

Beautiful, comfortable & practical ~ exactly what modern classics should be!

How to care for your Herman Miller (Eames) Lounge Chair

After you have spent the money to restore your classic Eames chair to its' original condition, you will probably want to take care it so it can provide many more years of beauty, comfort and practicality. One of the most frequent questions we receive is how to take care of the leather, wood and metal on these chairs?

Clients are always asking which leather cleaning product or wood polish is the best. Our response? NONE. That's right. Do not use any leather or wood product on your Herman Miller Lounge Chair! Think of it this way; leather is a skin. When you put make up on your skin, you clog the pores. The same goes for the wood.

Our recommendation? Take a very soft, very old tee shirt and dampen it a bit. Use this to gently wipe the topical dirt and any grease on the chair and wood. The dampness will also provide the necessary occasional humidity to keep the leather soft and supple. If you want to use some basic polish for the metal, you can, but do so sparingly.

These are such gorgeous pieces of furniture. If you own an authentic Eames chair, consider yourself lucky, and taking care of it accordingly will ensure that it is a piece that can be enjoyed for generations. And, if your Eames chair needs restoration (as they all do eventually), well, you know where to find us!

P.S. If you need help determining if your Eames chair is real or a fake, take a look at this post.

Before & After: Barcelona Stool restoration

We just finished up the restoration of two Barcelona stools. These are such beautiful pieces, and we were so happy to be able to breathe new life into them. Here are a few before pictures...

We replaced the straps on the frame, fabricated new cushions and reupholstered the cushions exactly as they had originally been made (repairing a previous upholstery job that made the covers incorrectly), and we cleaned & polished the frames. The result are two stools that look brand new again.

Pierre Jeanneret inspired bench

We just finished this amazing bench, inspired by Pierre Jeanneret's classic & timeless design. This piece  is upholstered with a hair-on-hide in a deep blue (difficult to see in the photo above, better represented below) and the legs are stained dark.

Milo Baughman inspired bench

We just finished this chrome bench, inspired by the beautiful design of Milo Baughman, who was one of the leading modern furniture designers of the 20th century. Made with flat bar metal base and legs in polished stainless steel, the seat is upholstered in a boucle by Nobilis. Another example of simple, classic and timeless design.