Dining Room Embellishment

A pair of white monogrammed slipcovers for its captain's chairs is exactly what a dining room needs! Covering the two end chairs in a dining room setting can add a bit of uniqueness, glamour, and personal flair. A nearby Signal Mountain design shop (Design Style) had us create these slipcovers in a fresh white linen and set it all off with a perky raspberry welt cord trim.
The initial was embroidered at a precious little shop here in the Riverview community of Chattanooga called Charlotte's Webb. We trust and recommend them often to our customers who want something stunning. We usually cut the blank for the embroidered panels and send the customers there in person to pick out exactly what they want. When the stitching is complete, we cut it to the pattern and insert it in the slipcover.

In this case, we never saw the second chair. We made a duplicate of the first and the designer placed the slipcover on the chair that had never left the home. We were told the customer was estatic. Lori's eye for detail in shaping the covers to perfection is the stuff legends are made of! The oversized contrasting buttons are a fun touch. The decorator, Janice Roberts, went the extra mile to track down buttons that were exactly the right size for the look she wanted.

Slipcover for 2 cushion Club Chair in Linen

Actually, there seems to be some cotton in this fabric. When cotton is added to a linen, it can add a lot of positive features. You still get the linen look, which is beautiful ...but you also get less wrinkling and less "stretchiness." Most of us know how it is when wearing a linen suit; you have to be careful how you buckle your safety belt in the car so as not to have that big mass of crinkling at your waist.

Adding cotton to a fabric also makes ironing and pressing easier. We washed this fabric before creating the slipcover and there wasn't a wrinkle in site! In fact, this hasn't been pressed at all.

On a side note: The chair is sitting on a device we think is very handy. It is a rolling pneumatic lift that has a plywood platform mounted to the top (you can see the silver handle on the far side.) We can raise and lower a chair to the appropriate height to prevent back strain. What a handy dandy thing this has turned out to be for us! We always love the creative part of what we do, but want to make the actual manufacturing process as smooth and painfree as possible.

Window Treatments Chattanooga

Doesn't this make you want to grab a novel and your favorite bath salts?

This is a job we finished right before Thanksgiving. It is a home in a beautiful historic area near the University of Tennessee just blocks from downtown Chattanooga. The home was built in 1920 and is just incredibly beautiful. The master bath curtain panels are shown above. They are created in a washed herringbone stripe cotton and are hung from a track on the ceiling. They glide open and closed using long white wands. WASHED is the key word here. The homeowner can take these down (I hope she has a tall ladder) and throw them in the home wash, so there is never a bit of fretting over trying to keep them as clean and bright as they are here.

This talented and pacesetting family began work on this home in the Spring and have met all the challenges of bringing a fine, yet neglected home up to standards for modern use. ...This all while balancing attendance to 2 young children and opening a second, instantly popular Chattanooga restaurant!


One of 3 Master Bedroom Roman Shades

We matched the fabric used in the bath to the master bedroom window treatments. There are 3 large, unlined Roman shades ...and while diffusing the Southern light to a soft glow, they allow privacy from the bustling street side of the house. These are also washable and give a light, airy, spa-like feeing to the room! Later, after the basics are covered in the window covering needs of the house, the couple can add tall drapery panels on iron rods to add a layer of warmth and elegance.

*note: I love the casual "crunch" of the cotton as the shade is drawn up!

More Scallops

Here's another picture of a scalloped skirt detail. These belong to one of the customers in Alabama I spoke about in one of the last posts. She was gracious enough to send this picture to me of the chairs put in place. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again, "I love wing chairs!" Just look at these guys. They look so fresh in their washed white slipcovers and sitting side-by-side. If you will notice, the corners are gathered. This makes the math of scalloped skirted slipcovers SO much easier. The slipcover on the wing chair we have at our showroom on Chattanooga's Southside is one of those math marvels that Lori can come up with! It is a totally straight, skirtless style with no gathers at the corners. The scallops had to be dead on perfect mathmatically. A chair is rarely as deep as it is wide, so it is a challenge to come up with scallops that are the appropriate width and number to work out correctly.

We've Moved!

Well, the dust has finally settled and we are in new digs! Whew! The move was a real feat of strength and endurance but SO worth it. Since we are out with customers as often as we are, it was not working to have our large workroom, office and showroom in the downtown location. Now, we only have the showroom in that area... just around the corner from our old upstairs place. It is inside the Galleries at Southside at 1404 Cowart Street. Being part of this collection of retail stores, the showroom can be open and attended by the staff there....even during the times we are buried under a ton of work, stitching on a hot project, or we are out at a customer's home for consultation or installation.

Its working wonderfully to meet customers at "The Galleries" to receive fabric and/or to chat about a project. I am there and available quite often during the week and customers can phone ahead to set a time to meet ...or to just catch me while they are browsing through some of the great kiosks located at this shopping destination. Also, there is a new lunch spot connected to the Galleries that is turning out to be a HUGE hit called Virginia's Southside Cafe. The regular menu is amazing and there is always something new and delicious on the daily specials.

Furniture to be slipcovered is mostly going to our Red Bank workroom, but occasionally we are receiving pieces at our E.Brainerd shop. But as always, anything that will fit in my little Subaru can travel with me from the downtown area. Our out-of-town customers can call to get directions directly to our workroom with their sofas and large chairs!

Above is a picture of my office door ...which is the entrance to the ORIGINAL Brick Path Studio! (If you every wondered how we got our name....!)

Scalloped Slipcover for Rocker

This chair is just adorable. It is like it is wearing a tailored summer dress. This belongs to a customer that drives from Alabama to Chattanooga to get her slipcovers done. The fabric is a slightly off-white denim that is fairly heavy in weight. It makes the skirt hang nicely and the buttoned tabs lay so neatly.

She brought us the chair, we consulted on the design, I gave her fabric yardages, and she went shopping locally for the linen. She found it in a great old shop on Dodds Avenue called Associated Fabrics. They have been in business since the dawn of time! It is always an experience to visit….with the creaky old wooden floors and an overwhelming amount of fabric in stock. You can also sit and browse through stacks and stacks of fabric sample books to custom order that special fabric in just the right color. The staff is very knowledgeable and can help you find most anything you need.

When this customer brought the fabric back to us later in the day, we rolled it out, cut it into manageable sized pieces and washed it. It began very smooth and flat, but came out of the dryer all plumped up and slightly rumpled….beautiful! I was so pleased with the comfortable washed look. The customer now has the option of ironing it with a hot iron to get a smoother, pressed look…or to use it the way it is (my favorite!) We give our customers the opportunity to wash their own fabric or to have us wash it. Either way, we like to serge the raw edges of the fabric prior to washing to prevent those THOUSANDS of strings and the raveling that occurs. In fact, the completed slipcover is completely serged on the inside as it is sewn to make it longer lasting.