Jewel Velvet Chairs

HI! Take a seat, or two.  Call up a friend and park your bums on these lovely velvet padded treats.

I am pleased to announce the two new items of nice to have recently come into my possession.

Yesterday I was wandering around Crouch End, where I live, and was doing my usual round of charity shop shopping when I over heard half a conversation about some place giving things away. I remembered that the British Legion Hall was closed and linked it to that, whilst sighing at the thought of missing the chance to have the coat stands that the charity shop owners were bringing in.  As I left there was talk about chairs. 

I carried on and walked home.  There's a little short cut I take through the lovely tree lined streets amongst the beautiful cared for front gardens of large victorian family homes.  This way is also the British Legion Hall.  I walk past, and see 4 men hurling wood and other interior fittings into a big skip.  I stop.  Outside, stacked up are about 60/70 gold and teal velvet chairs.  One of the men chucking the wood into the skip stopped and asked me if I wanted to get through, although I'd just walked that way, and I realised that I must have been stood staring for about 15 seconds!  Ha, dream land.

I approached one of the men in suits, obviously not doing heavy lifting and ask him if I could take a chair please?  He and the skip men announce that everything outside can be taken.  WOW, heaven.  There was also a huge old till, you know the ones with the little placards that pop up at the top saying shillings and d. Well, it was metal and as big as a telly so I walked past that and selected two chairs, one of each colour and   with the least amount of fag burns in them!!  

I nearly had to fight for my selected gold one with a little boy who was about to pick it up! Well, not fight, but he wanted a chair too and was trying to convince his Daddy to let him have one, I didn't want to select another chair (a lot of fag holes in some) and kindly said, Oops, can I have this chair please?  I wanted to get them home!  Now an extra person, would have been helpful to me at this point because they are HEAVY.  I live 7 mins (half a mile) away from the hall, and half of that distance is up a hill, I live at the top, and by the time I get to my door, my arms are shaking and my back is twinging!

An aching back doesn't stop a clean up operation though!  They were smelling pretty musty, and a few Google searches of how to clean velvet padded chairs didn't really offer me any great solutions so I got a bucket of warm water, a sponge and squeezed some Ecover liquid stain remover on to make a foam and just scrubbed the chair all over.  I used the Ecover stuff because it's natural and I didn't want to ruin the chairs or take the colour out.  The purple spray was upholstery cleaner, but it had bleach in the ingredients.. I didn't want to take that chance so it wasn't used.  It's a good product for non invasive stain removal on all sorts of clothes, unlike a vanish bar one I have which tends to take the colour out of clothes :(  That's why I've linked it.  You're welcome.

Anyway, back to cleaning!  I then dried the chairs by scraping along the fabric with a tea towel, and left them out to dry in the warm air.

I also went out and bought some Febreeze (fabric spray that makes odours not be odorous) whilst they were drying because they still smelt a little.  The British Legion Hall had been open for 90 years, I wonder how old these chairs were?!  They can't have spent their precious money on many refurbishments in recent years so I can excuse the faint old smell still there. 

Let me go and smell them right now.... Yep, they smell alright, like Febreeze.

 Any tips for smells on this from any one?  I am still yet to vacuum them and I'm sure this windy afternoon will be nice to them once I put them outside, they are nearly there, I just want them to smell new!  

Solina jumped on them as soon as I brought them in, I guess it looks comfy for paws.

O_o