Case Study: BBC One – Money for Nothing

It has been an honour to be an Artisan Maker on the BBC One TV show Money for Nothing for a while now.  I am forever grateful for this amazing opportunity!  Being on the show gives me full creative licence, day to day I am upholstering for my clients, but when I’m working on the show I am designing from the heart – using my own inspirations, themes, eras etc.  It’s where I get to be my true creative self and I love it!  

There is one project in particular that really sticks with me.  Money for Nothing came to me with six very, very tired mahogany dining chairs that they had saved from landfill and were ready for some TLC.  When the chairs arrived in my workshop, they were awfully rickety and needed a lot of structural work.  These chairs had been left untouched for the whole of their life. 

On closer inspection, they were branded James Reilly Manchester and had spent some of their life in an auction house as they were numbered with auction stickers.   James Reilly Manchester isn’t a designer I was aware of which led me to find out all I could about the man behind the chairs.  James Reilly was a mahogany furniture designer based in Manchester at the height of the industrial revolution, operating between 1850-1889.   

Being a Manchester girl myself I felt instantly connected to the chairs and the man behind them.  The work ethic of the Manchester people during the Industrial Revolution and through to this day is something we Mancunians are proud of.  The Manchester worker bee is one of the best-known symbols of Manchester and has been an emblem for the city for over 150 years, you only need to walk around Manchester to see that it’s engraved in our buildings, on our pavements and bins, and tattooed on many people of Manchester. The bee denotes Mancunians' hard work ethic and the city being a hive of activity. It has also come to represent the sense of unity in our great city – There was no doubt in my mind that these chairs had to be refurbished in Worker Bee yellow. 

These chairs had the VIC (Very Important Chair) treatment, they were structurally secured, stripped of their old fabrics and inners, sanded back, resprayed worker bee yellow, webbed and foamed, and given a beautiful yellow velvet coat to match the framework.  It took a lot of hard work and care to get these chairs feeling and looking their best.  Now with their new coat, they are a statement piece for any home, with a fantastic story behind them, full of Manchester history.

If you'd like to discuss a commercial project, then please get in touch by emailing: info@theupholsterylady.co.uk