Pompeii No.45: Refinished Regency Chairs

Last August I posted about four Regency chairs that were a gift from my friend Sandy. I talked about them and their interesting history in Pompeii No. 24, here.

The chairs were painted an awful mustard yellow, and had very dated upholstery. When I took them to a local refinisher, I discovered that they were made of mahogany, but that they also had endured several repairs. The refinisher insisted that he could redo them so that I'd never notice the repairs, but he doesn't know me too well! I opted to paint them instead.

kohlerinteriors.com

I toyed with the idea of painting my chairs black and gold and upholstering them in a red fabric (which might have approximated the handsome Regency chairs above) but in the end, I decided to use colors from the mural. It's a small room, after all, and I wanted the chairs to complement rather than overshadow the art.

I had the chairs painted a color to match Sherwin Williams' "Arresting Auburn," and had them upholstered in a moire silk to match Sherwin Williams' "Alaea." Those are the two colors that one sees as the mural's columned backgrounds.

One of the refinished chairs

Here's one of the chairs in place. The chair and mural colors are more in sync than this photograph shows. Note that the back of the chair is level with the painted chair rail.

click to enlarge

Here's the first full view of the Pompeii Room as it appears today. Because the room is quite small, the chairs will eventually be grouped around a small table that will fit either under the window or against the wall opposite the right-hand doorway.

There are still details to address — the table I mentioned, a lamp for the table, a window treatment to replace the venetian blinds that I've been graying out, the tympanum that my faithful commentors urged me to detail, and the painting of a marble plaque to go over the window.

Those will all happen in due time.

But don't go away!! In my next posting, the mural of the Pompeii Room will migrate to the next room. I hope you'll be there for the next chapter!
.

Pompeii No.24: Chairs for the Pompeii Room

The challenge of finding the right furniture for the Pompeii Room has been to find a set of chairs that are neoclassic — either klismos chairs or a style that was inspired by klismos chairs.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, here, my friend Sandy and I have been visiting a monthly brocante in our town of St. Petersburg, Florida. When we saw these chairs several months ago, Sandy agreed with me that they would be perfect for the Pompeii Room, so much so that she insisted on gifting me with them!!

The chairs came with this mustard yellow paint rubbed on them, which I suppose was meant to make them attractive in a "shabby chic" sort of way. The gaudy color probably worked in my favor because I guess that a lot of people could not see past it to recognize the chairs' wonderful details.

Each chair has a rope twist decoration and a handsome brass medallion, and therein lies a story:

www.neptunepictues.com

In 1805, Admiral Lord Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar, destroying 22 ships of the Franco-Spanish fleet, and without losing a single British ship. It was Britain's greatest naval victory, and one in which the great admiral lost his life.

The victory, plus Nelson's heroic death, inspired a British craze of all things naval, and that in turn impacted the neoclassic style that was sweeping both Britain and the Continent at the time.

1stdibs.com 

The rope twist decoration (usually seen with elements called buttons) is actually a reference to the Royal Navy and the Battle of Trafalgar!

click to enlarge  |  1stdibs.com  |  wakefieldscearce.com  |  1stdibs.com

Here are three Regency chairs of similar design, each with the rope twist decoration and buttons that are also featured on my chairs. You can click on the image to see the details.

I'm getting my Regency chairs refinished, and I'll be showing them off at a later date, as all the elements of the room come together.

And now, back to the mural . . .

.