1937 Fry & Blackhall Ltd "X-Rayed" Sofa and 2 Chairs - Blue

This was a very interesting sofa set because we were able to have an exact date and manufacturer for it. The set is made by Fry & Blackhall Furniture company of Wingham Ontario, and the tags are dated January 10th 1937. Unfortunately, because this was a larger set (taking up a lot of shop space), it was back out the door before I got finished photos of the pieces. You can get a general idea of how the pieces turned out based on the "before" photos, and some of the in-progress work. The originals had the sofa and chair in a red and cream floral, with one other chair in cream. The 3 finished pieces were reupholstered in a blue micro-suede.

Chair 1 before:











The arms on all 3 pieces needed to be removed to upholster them (and to remove the old fabric). They're solid walnut.



The set had been "repaired" previously with a second layer of webbing. We replaced all of this with new webbing.



Part of the patented designs of this set include the way that the cage of springs in the seats are made, and also in the way that the entire seat assembly slides out of the frame (it gets upholstered separately).



One of the springs had been replaced.



The set has two labels on each piece. A nice tacked metal one, and a red and white paper label (shown later).



Bare frame with new webbing on the back and arms, as well as new burlap on the arms.



Back springs retied and new burlap on the back.





Chair number two before:







Second label on the chair:



Sofa before:



Paper label on sofa:



Sofa in-progress photo (just before starting to install the back panel. You can see the new webbing, as well as some of the blue fabric.



The semi-completed chairs. The original straw padding has been reattached to the backs, on top of this would then be the layers of cotton and the finished fabric.





We did not refinish the wood, but we did do touch-ups on the various pieces (which is fairly standard on all our pieces). You can see one foot "before" and three feet "after".