2017 San Francisco Decorator Showcase
We were delighted to participate again in the San Francisco Decorator Showcase house – promoting great Bay Area interior designers' work while benefiting a great cause (tuition assistance for San Francisco University High School). This year we collaborated with the talented team from Redmond Aldrich Design to revitalize the sophisticated and stunningly eclectic dining room furnishings. (Read our recent interview with Chloe HERE.)
The dining room in this year's Showcase house presented a unique challenge: its expansive size. With 15' ceilings and ample space to fit a fully-furnished studio apartment within, the room could easily swallow up "normal size" furniture. Instead of custom building or sourcing ready-made furniture, Redmond Aldrich opted to revitalize and rescale vintage pieces. Read on to learn more.
Restoring a Vintage Gio Ponti Dining Table
In their search for the perfect table, Redmond Aldrich fell in love with the lines of an exquisite vintage Gio Ponti style dining table they found on Chairish. The legs were undeniably sexy and the beveled edge octagon top was ever-so-chic. However, it measured a mere 4' feet in length - dollhouse size in this massive room! So they decided to rescale the table to fit the room. Here’s what we did…
Revitalization Checklist
Great structural condition
Re-scale overall size of table
Design Decisions
Redmond Aldrich chose to replicate the original design and simply alter the size. Revitaliste created a new 10' long top with the same beautiful beveling and elongated octagon shape. To support the new top, we increased the distance between the legs, reinforced the base with steel rods covered in raw brass tubing and added two center black enameled legs with brass sabots to boot (pun intended).
Reupholstering Vintage Knoll Dining Chairs
A table this size requires quite a few chairs – ten to be exact. Sourcing this larger quantity required persistence and a bit of creativity. Lighting on the perfect seating complement to the Gio Ponti table, Redmond Aldrich found these clean-line, wood framed vintage Knoll dining chairs from three separate sellers. Because the chairs were going to be completely restored, it didn't matter that the original look of each set was different. Here’s what we did to these vintage classics…
Revitalization Checklist
Several of the chairs were not structurally sound so they were re-glued and reinforced with dowels.
The frames are made of oak, a very open grain wood, so the wood needed to be well sealed and primed before the lacquer could be applied.
Design Decisions
Redmond Aldrich designed the chicest Yves Klein-inspired blue chairs! The Knoll chairs were lacquered in a semi-gloss custom color based on Benjamin Moore "New York State of Mind". The Knoll chairs were upholstered in a similarly colored blue velvet from Savel. The sophisticated monochromatic chair design perfectly complements the earthier black wood-stained dining table.
Have a furniture you love but the scale or color is wrong? Revitaliste makes the revitalization process super simple.
Request a furniture restoration quote HERE.
