Conant Ball Lounge Chair Transformation

The quick story of this fabulous Conant Ball chair is as follows. When I was first teaching upholstery classes in the basement of my former home, one student brought this chair to reupholster. Even though I provided really clear examples of chairs that would work in my course, this was not one of them. As you can tell, it’s ALL sewing. In fact, it’s more like a sewing project than upholstery. The student lamented about how this was not her style and she’d much rather have a more traditional chair to learn from. We made a quick swap of a traditional side chair I had on hand and I was able to get my greedy little paws on this beauty.

For years, maybe even a decade, it sat in my garage under a pile of other ‘finds’ throughout the years. The elastic webbing was shot and the wood was filthy when I moved it to my shop about a year ago. So, there you have it. That’s the back story.

The follow up story is that my son in DC needed a reading chair. Well, my other son in L.A. needs a writing chair reminiscent of this one in this photo of Kurt Vonnegut (a fellow Hoosier) in his work area.

Luckily for son #2, child #3, I happened to have another iconic mid century lounger in my shop, also in need of a makeover. By the by-the makeovers for both of these chairs will be in my upcoming cushion class Bum Huggers–How to Create Bum Loving Cushions for Every Room in Your House.

On with this story, though. I revamped the Conan Ball and drove it out to DC, with other pieces of my best curated furnishings. Why? Because I was so thrilled that son #1, child #2 wanted it. Here’s how the top pic looked prior to it’s makeover.

The cushions I made for this chair are called bullnose cushions, as opposed to boxed and corded cushions. I’ll be explaining all of this in the Bum Huggers course. If you’re planning on being more creative in 2021, in a practical way, sign up for the HomeRoom email to keep you updated on all things happening-both live, and online.