Rachael South Upholstery - Manaton - Dartmoor - South Devon

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Address: Beckwood Cottage Town: Manaton County: Devon Postcode: TQ13 9UG Telephone: 01647 221 610 Email: To Email Click Here Website: Click Here Category: Retail Contact: Rachael South Google map Click here Multimap.co.uk satellite map Click here

Description Rachael South Upholstery offer a versatile service, including re-upholstery using traditional and modern methods, chair caning and woven rush seating. Rachael is from a family of traditional upholsterers and chair caners. Having worked extensively with all types of furniture including fine antiques and 20th century design classics the emphasis is always to produce quality, lasting work. Part of the re-upholstery ethos is to support re-cycling and sustainable living; each piece of re-conditioned furniture will hopefully last for another generation of use, if not longer. Traditional upholstery is extremely durable and uses sustainable, natural materials including hessian, horse hair and cotton wadding.The restoration begins by stripping away all of the old outer fabric and stuffings. The furniture is then re-built from the frame upwards beginning with webbing and hand lashed springs. Over the springs go at least three layers of different stuffing's one of which is hand stitched to produce crisp edges to shape the furniture. Modern upholstery techniques are generally quicker and a more cost effective process.After taking away all the old stuffing's and fabric, various foams, on a webbing base are used to rebuild the furniture interior. It is sometimes possible to simply replace a worn outer fabric if the interior is still in good condition Rachael was taught the craft of chair caning and rush seating by her father, himself an upholsterer and chair caner. He also inherited the skill from his father Michael South (pictured). Chair caning has been used in European furniture for at least 300 years and is favoured for its elegance and durability. Rush seating has a rustic feel, but works very well when incorporated into contemporary design. As an alternative material to Rush, Sea-grass can be used to restore the seat. Rachael South Upholstery also produces one off designs. We re-cycle furniture using traditional techniques which are then covered in textiles which are either hand made or have been collected while traveling in Central America.