When I tried to think of an upholstery project for my own home I realised that I’ve pretty much run out of space for anything new and so I’ve had to move to my mum’s house for this project using Clarke & Clarke upholstery fabric (lucky mum!). My mum still lives in our family home but it’s a four storey town house in London so they’ve chopped it in half and have the bottom two floors now. There is a large open plan sitting room/dining room/kitchen on the first floor with access to a terrace and steps down to the garden at one end and a big bay window onto the street at the other end. When they recently renovated the house they built in a window seat here for storage and for extra seating for guests. However, they never quite got round to finishing it off with seat cushions so this is where I step in.

I asked my mum what colours she wanted the cushions to be, bearing in mind that the window has a large, very colourful stained glass panel attached to it (this came from Orme’s wine bar that my parents used to own in Clapham and our amazingly talented friend, Jo, made it for them). My mum picked out the painting below, that sits to the left of the window, as the inspiration for the cushion colours to tie the window and this side of the room together.

Use a piece of art as the basis of colour choices in a room. Oh, and meet beautiful Phoebe who is Otto’s best friend.

So we picked out three different fabrics for the window seat: a textured petrol blue for the seat itself (Tornado Surf), a chalk pink for the back of the scatter cushions (Tornado Chalk Pink) and a blush pink for the front of the cushions that blends well with the stained glass (Squall Blush). All of the fabrics are from Clarke & Clarke’s SS15 Monsoon collection.

The colours work perfectly with the stained glass window as well as the painting, which is on the left above the sofa. Anything darker would have absorbed too much light from the window.

My mum decided to leave both ends of the window seat free of cushions for drinks/vase/lamp etc.

The stained glass is from Orme’s wine bar that my parents used to own and run in the seventies and eighties.

The texture of the fabric is perfect for a window seat as the cushions don’t slip around and it disguises any dirt.

What I used:

Foam cushions from eFoam – You just have to measure the dimensions of your seat and they will cut it to size. For a window seat I would recommend adding the dacron wrap with stockinette option otherwise the foam will disintegrate before long and the fabric you cover it with won’t sit smoothly on bare foam.

Tornado Surf fabric – seat cushions

Tornado Chalk Pink fabric and Squall Blush fabric – scatter cushions

Scatter cushion inner pads – John Lewis

I used a basic bench seat cushion tutorial from the Liberty Book of Sewing to make the covers, which is relatively simple but you must spend a good deal of time cutting the pieces to the perfect size and pinning them together very carefully to ensure that they fit well (the tighter the fit the better as they will loosen up over time).

I just need my own bay window now as I’m a bit jealous! If I were do my own, I think I’d choose a lovely grey wool fabric and pale pink cushions (I’m off in dream land now).

Katy x

I’ve been talking about doing an upholstery course for a while now and one of the main reasons for doing so would be to learn how to create my ideal piece of furniture, covered in my favourite fabrics. All too often I see the most beautiful chairs, sofas or footstools that cost nothing because the upholstery is ruined and I wish that I had the skills to recover it and bring it back to life. Imagine the possibilities!

I am so pleased that Clarke & Clarke is sponsoring my blog this month as it’s inspired me to dream up upholstery projects I can do without having done a course yet (one day, one day!). Many of the Clarke & Clarke SS15 fabric collections are ideal for upholstery projects so I have pored over the classical and more contemporary designs and found some of my favourites for a few projects I have had in mind for a while…

Ercol armchair in Eden Flax.

I have been obsessed with the idea of having an Ercol armchair for ages; it would be ideal in my sitting room. The subtle herringbone of this Eden fabric in Flax would work perfectly with this Ercol design classic and the colour is perfection.

Ercol daybed in Chico Aqua.

Another Ercol piece that I just can not get out of my mind is this daybed. If it were up to me I would have got rid of our sofa years ago and replaced it with this. However, Jules is not convinced that the daybed is comfy enough to be our main sofa (he doesn’t like hard arms) so I will have to wait until we have more space for this beauty. In the meantime I have chosen the Chico design in Aqua from the SS15 Zanzibar collection as the perfect fabric cover – I think the colour blends so well with the soft honey tones of the daybed frame.

Victorian blanket box in Squall Blush.

I have had my eye on an old Victorian blanket box for our bedroom as we need a bit more storage and this could happily sit at the end of our bed. I thought it would be nice to add a foam top covered in fabric to make it into a seat. The Squall fabric in this beautiful Blush colour from the new SS15 Monsoon collection would work really well with the other pinks in the room and it has a lovely texture ideal for a seat.

Finally, one tip from me, just in case you are new to choosing fabric, always make sure you request fabric swatch samples to help you choose the right design. So many of us are used to buying everything online but it is so, so difficult to do that with fabric as the colours, size of prints, texture do not translate well online. I think you need to be able to hold the fabric in your room or on the piece of furniture you want to cover to be able to judge how well it will work. Also, check it in natural daylight and at night with your lights turned on to really judge whether it works in your space. Luckily, Clarke & Clarke fabrics are available in stockists all over the country and internationally (find out where here) so I would definitely recommend going and choosing the fabric in store, if possible.

Katy x