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Ella Jenkins Upholstery

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Ella Jenkins Upholstery

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Bespoke upholstery and chair stylist Hello & welcome! Working closely together we can create a piece of furniture that will be loved and treasured forever.

Ella Jenkins Designs is a boutique upholstery business specialising in the upholstery & refurbishment of vintage & antique furniture. My bespoke design service is especially for people looking for that distinctive something for their home, a unique gift for a special person’s birthday, or that extra special wedding present. You can find a selection of my own distinctive work for sale via my website, my Etsy Shop and The British Craft House.

11/10/2026

🍂 CONFESSIONS OF AN UPHOLSTERER

Confession No. 1: The chair I'd forgotten I owned!

Yes, really. I'd completely forgotten about this chair, which had been languishing at the back of my storage unit.

When I finally rediscovered it, the woodwork was badly watermarked and had developed a rather nasty grey tinge. Thankfully, my Dad's secret recipe came to the rescue.

Dad was a French polisher, and I learnt so much from him. A good clean-up followed by natural h**p oil brought the wood back to life and gave it a lovely deep patina.

Confession No. 2: I have a tendency to change my mind!

I started out with a very clear idea of what I wanted to do with this chair. A vibrant matcha green fabric, botanical appliqué, a fresh, leafy look. I could picture it perfectly.

Somewhere along the way, my creative brain took a detour. The green was abandoned, the autumn fabrics came out, and the whole idea took a completely different direction.

And you know what? I'm rather glad it did!

Completely different from the chair I'd originally imagined, but that's the thing about making things by hand. Sometimes the best results come when you let an idea evolve rather than sticking rigidly to the original plan.

Now, if only I could remember what else I've got hiding at the back of that storage unit… 😂

Tell me, are you someone who sticks to the original plan, or do you get carried away by a new idea halfway through?

04/10/2026

Confessions of an Upholsterer: I've Never Been a Gladioli Girl

I have a confession to make.
I've never really been a gladioli girl.
Which is slightly ironic, given that I created a chair called Glorious Gladioli.

Gladioli have always been around in abundance in August — particularly around my birthday — and for years I was given them as birthday flowers.
Usually orange ones.

And if you've been following me for a while, you'll know that orange flowers are not exactly my thing. 😂

Perhaps it's also because I've never managed to grow gladioli that actually stand up straight. Mine always seem to develop a rather alarming lean, as though they've had a few too many glasses of w**e. (Bit like myself!)

So why, then, did I create a gladioli chair?
This chair started life looking very different indeed.

A rather tired, rather ordinary blue chair that was definitely in need of a new lease of life.

For this piece I collaborated with Bath-based artist , whose work I greatly admire. I was particularly drawn to her vibrant gladioli artwork, and had one of her prints reproduced onto luxury velvet to create the central panel of the chair.

And suddenly the gladioli made sense.
I chose vibrant turquoise for the rest of the chair, picking up the colours in the artwork, and added flashes of hot pink piping.
And then there are those little front godets...
To me, they look just a little bit like a glimpse of knickers!

Because I think every good chair deserves a little bit of personality.

Perhaps that's one of the things I love about being a textile artist.
You don't necessarily have to love the subject matter to be inspired by it. Sometimes someone else's interpretation makes you look at something you've never particularly cared for in a completely different way.

So perhaps I've finally made peace with gladioli.
I'm still drawing the line at orange ones for my birthday, though.
You have been warned.

27/09/2026

Chair of the Week – The Chair That Got Left Behind

This is the story of a chair that got left behind.
My client’s neighbours were moving to the Outer Hebrides — like you do — and decided they didn't have room for this rather lovely old chair in their new life.
So they left it at the end of the drive, in the rain, for the bin man.
Luckily, my client had other ideas.

She whipped it into her shed and eventually brought it along to my workshop.
“Can you do anything with it, Ella?” she asked.
“Maybe…” I replied.

It was certainly looking a little sad and sorry for itself at that point.
But then she showed me the fabric she had chosen.
Oh. The fabric was fabulous.
And that got me thinking.

Because one of the things I love about upholstery is discovering what happens when you take a traditional chair and put something completely contemporary on it.

You don't always have to restore an old chair to how it might originally have looked. Sometimes the best thing you can do is give it a completely new personality.
And this chair absolutely came alive.
The beautiful old wooden frame, those gorgeous turned legs and wonderfully curving arms suddenly worked brilliantly with that bold, contemporary fabric.
And when I stood back and looked at the finished chair…
I had a confession to make.
I suffered from a rather severe case of chair envy.
I actually started wondering whether I could tell my client that I'd been burgled.
“Sorry… they took the chair.”
Or perhaps I needed a better excuse as to why I suddenly NEEDED the chair and she didn't.

Sadly, I did eventually return it to its rightful owner.
But I'm still slightly jealous.
Proof that sometimes all an old chair needs is a fabulous fabric and a little imagination.

20/09/2026

FOOTSTOOL OF THE WEEK — Meet Mr Peacock

Once upon a time, Mr Peacock was a rather ordinary 1960s red vinyl footstool.

He has certainly had a make over.

I transformed him using a glorious mix of vintage silks and velvets, finished with lots of hand embroidery and one particularly special detail…

The thick gold embroidery thread came from my Mum’s stash. It had previously been used to embroider priest’s vestments.

I love giving old pieces of furniture a new story — but perhaps the best part of Mr Peacock’s story is what happened after he left my workshop.

He sold very quickly, and his new owner recently sent me this lovely update:

“Mr Peacock is stunning with a range of vintage and bespoke fabrics and trimmings put together with outstanding quality of workmanship and skill. But for me the most wonderful thing about him is that he is an eminently functional piece of furniture well up to the rigours of family life, after months of use as an impromptu coffee table, foot rest and perch for building Lego and playing board games he still looks as good as new.”

And that is exactly what I want my furniture to do.

Yes, it can be beautiful.
Yes, it can be unique.
Yes, it can have embroidery, vintage fabrics and a little bit of my Mum woven into it.

But it is still furniture.

It is there to be sat on, put your feet up on, balance your coffee on, build Lego on, play games around and generally become part of everyday family life.

Because beautiful furniture shouldn't have to be precious.

It should be made to be used and treasured. 💙

🦚 Mr Peacock — another old piece of furniture given a completely new story.

13/09/2026

🪑 Chair of the Week – The Burghley Chair

Last weekend was the Burghley Horse Trials here in Stamford, so the town was once again invaded by visitors in tweed, arriving in enormous 4x4s – or Chelsea Tractors, as we locals affectionately call them.

They come up from London to play at being country folk for a few days, which most locals find extremely irritating. 😂

But we do have to admit that it’s rather good for the local economy.

And all the tweed reminded me of this chair, which I made a few years ago.

The design was inspired by a photograph my friend Jacob took of Burghley House around midnight, which he very kindly allowed me to use. Jacob is one of those irritatingly talented people who always takes amazing photographs.

I, on the other hand, have a particular gift for getting wheelie bins into the background, chopping people's heads off and generally finding the least flattering possible angle.

We all have different talents.

I started with the appliqué of Burghley House and then, for reasons which are still unclear to me, decided to hand embroider all the railings.

I suspect this decision may have been made after a large glass of Pinot Grigio. Or possibly two.

As the bottle emptied, the railings became progressively more… relaxed.

I prefer to think of them as having a certain artistic freedom.

I'm certainly not admitting they went wonky. 😉

The chair was eventually bought by a lovely American lady who lived on one of the US Air Force bases in Norfolk. She used to come into Stamford and walk around Burghley, so it seemed particularly fitting that she should take this one home.

I often wonder where it is now.

I hope it’s still being used and admired somewhere – perhaps in another part of the world, with those slightly wonky railings quietly telling their own story.

Every one of my unique chairs has a story to tell. ❤️

06/09/2026

Chair of the Week: Whale Tails & Starry Skies ⭐️

This week we're going to rock and roll…

I found this rather tired and worn late Victorian rocking chair on Facebook Marketplace. I was told it had come from a family home in Leeds and had once belonged to a great aunt who had been a nurse.

I loved its shape immediately. Unlike some rocking chairs, which can be rather imposing, this one had lovely, dainty proportions. I could just imagine a weary nurse settling into it with a cuppa after a long shift at the hospital.

Then I stripped it down and discovered something rather wonderful.

Hidden beneath the upholstered arms were the most beautiful carved wooden arms — which, for some reason, had been completely covered up. To me, they immediately looked like the tail of a whale.

And so the idea for the chair was born.

I envisaged a great whale swimming through the sea, with a tiny boat perched on his nose and a starry sky above. It's not an entirely original idea — I've seen variations of the concept before — but this is my own version, using the fabrics and materials I had to hand.

The whale is appliquéd onto a wonderfully patterned blue fabric, with a little boat bobbing on his nose and tiny stars scattered across the velvet sky above.

The woodwork had been pretty badly marked where the arms had previously been upholstered, so there was quite a bit of filling and repairing before I painted the whole chair in this lovely blue.

And now?

Well, I think it works.

There's something wonderfully soothing about a rocking chair, and this one feels particularly at home in a nursery or child's bedroom. A little whale, a starry sky and a gentle rocking motion… perhaps the perfect place for a bedtime story.

A gentle rock, a starry sky and a whale's tail… what more could you want?

30/08/2026

Chair of the Week – The Welsh Rocker

Oh, this one. 😳

This beautiful old American rocking chair was once covered in very tired red vinyl. My client wanted me to transform it into something deeply personal — a scene from the Rhondda Valley in Wales, where she had spent many happy times with her great grandparents in Hopkinstown.

Simple enough, you might think.

Except the brief included terraced miners' houses, a pit wheel, railway tracks to represent her Grandad driving coal trains from the pit to Cardiff Docks… plus a dragonfly, cow parsley and a fox.

A pit wheel. On a rocking chair.

I mean… WTAF? 😂

This was one of those projects where the idea sounded wonderful, but actually making it work was a whole different matter. It was important to me to capture the juxtaposition of the natural beauty of the Welsh Valleys and the adjacent industrialisation. Getting the scale and perspective right on the back of a rocking chair was a challenge. Fitting all the elements together without making the design look cluttered was another. There may also have been a little bit of swearing in Welsh involved along the way.

But that's the joy of what I do.

Using applique, hand and machine embroidery and a little fabric painting, I slowly built up the landscape — the valleys, the houses, the pit wheel and railway — and added those smaller details that made it uniquely hers.

And somehow, it all came together.

This wasn't just about making an old chair beautiful again. It was about taking someone's memories, family history and sense of place and turning them into something they could actually sit in, use and pass down through the family.

My client described the finished chair as “truly magical.”

And I have to admit, I'm rather proud of this one too.

There is another little twist to the story. These “American” rocking chairs often have a rather surprising Welsh connection of their own. I've written about it here:

What Nationality is Your American Rocker Chair?
Read the blog: https://ellajenkinsdesigns.co.uk/the-not-so-american-rocker-the-welsh-secret-behind-this-classic-chair/

This is the third American rocker I've had the pleasure — and occasionally the sheer bloody challenge — of transforming.

And yes… there is another one waiting in the wings. 😬

16/08/2026

CHAIR OF THE WEEK
The Prie-Dieu Who Keeps Getting Admired but Never Taken Home

I have to confess, I’m beginning to feel a little sorry for this one.

She has been admired at exhibitions, oohed and aahed over at events and had plenty of people telling me how beautiful she is…

…and yet, despite all this attention, she is still waiting for someone to take her home.

This lovely antique prie-dieu has been fully restored and upholstered in the most gorgeous deep green velvet, and features a rather special piece of textile art.

A beautiful barn owl swoops down from the moon towards a tiny mouse scurrying through a meadow of hand-painted cow parsley.

This chair was actually the first time I properly experimented with fabric painting. I was slightly terrified that I might ruin it, if I’m honest, but I thoroughly enjoyed the process — and I think the painted flowers work beautifully alongside the applique and machine embroidery.

I added a few tiny touches of red and silver thread hand embroidery amongst the flowers too, just to give the design a little extra sparkle.

She really is one of those chairs that is much more interesting the closer you get. There are little details tucked away for you to discover.

So, if you happen to know someone who is looking for a rather lovely, slightly magical chair with a penchant for moonlit meadows, owls and mice…

she's still waiting.

https://ellajenkinsdesigns.co.uk/shop/antique-prayer-chair-with-owl-design/

09/08/2026

CHAIR OF THE WEEK
The Wedding Leaves Chair

Well, this week's Chair of the Week has quite a story behind it.

And after successfully delivering her to her clients yesterday — despite the A1 being closed and sitting stationary in my car for over an hour in 28°C heat — I think she deserves her moment!

This chair began when the lovely interior designer Alison Anderson approached me about creating a bespoke upholstered bedroom chair for one of her clients.

Alison had found my work online and was also inspired by the wonderful Kit Kemp.

So, I went away immediately and Googled Kit Kemp because, honestly, I'd never heard of her! 🤦‍♀️😂

I was then sent a copy of the couple's wedding invitation, which was to become the inspiration for the embroidery on the chair.

There was just one little problem…

There was no digital file to work from.

So out came the tracing paper and coloured pencils as I tried to work out how I could take the beautiful leafy design from the invitation and translate it into something that would actually work as machine embroidery.

And this is where my lovely friend Kerry came in.

Kerry is a professional embroiderer and, over the years, we've worked together on lots of projects. I developed the design, wording and positioning, and Kerry brought her specialist machine-embroidery skills to turn those ideas into the finished embroidered panels.

But there was another rather significant complication.

This is a very curved chair.

Getting an embroidered design to sit exactly where you want it on a flat piece of fabric is one thing. Getting it to flow beautifully across a chair that curves, turns and changes direction is quite another.

There was a LOT of measuring.

A LOT of repositioning.

Quite a lot of swearing and gnashing of teeth.

And more than a few conversations along the lines of:

“Nope. That's definitely not going to work.” 😂

This was also a long-distance bespoke commission, so there were a LOT of emails.

And I mean a LOT.

There were often three-way conversations between the client, Alison and me, with poor Alison diplomatically translating my:

“Nah, upholstery doesn't work like that.”

into something considerably more appropriate for customer service. 😂

But that's the thing about bespoke work.

Sometimes the starting point is a fabric.

Sometimes it's a piece of artwork.

And sometimes it's a paper wedding invitation from 2018.

Then comes the designing, experimenting, problem-solving, collaborating and figuring out how to make the idea work on an actual piece of furniture.

And finally… you get this.

The Wedding Leaves Chair. 🌿

A chair inspired by a wedding invitation, designed and upholstered by me, with the embroidery brought to life in collaboration with my very talented friend Kerry.

And I am absolutely delighted to say that we are all thrilled with how she turned out.

And perhaps my favourite part of this whole story is that Kerry and I actually met because she bought my Hare on a Prayer chair several years ago.

I was very nervous about approaching her when I discovered she was a professional embroiderer. What if my work wasn't up to her standards?

Thankfully, we got on like a house on fire — and what began with a slightly nerve-wracking approach has turned into a lovely friendship and a creative collaboration that I really value.

So there we are.
One interior designer
One wedding invitation.
One very curvy chair.
One brilliant embroiderer.
A LOT of emails.
A fair amount of swearing.
And very happy clients.

If you've got an idea for a piece of furniture that you'd love to make completely your own, I'd love to hear it.

Bespoke commissions are always welcome. ✂️🪡

02/08/2026

Chair of the Week – Whispers of Spring

If you'd seen this chair before I rescued it, you might have wondered why I didn't just take it straight to the tip!

It had been upholstered in rather unfortunate snot-green Dralon, the elegant carved frame had disappeared beneath that unmistakable 1980s orange pine finish (rather like a very bad fake tan), and the original sprung seat had completely failed.

Then came the biggest surprise...

Instead of replacing the broken springs properly, someone had packed the seat with a piece of gate post! I kid you not. I really wish I'd taken a photograph because nobody ever believes me!

So this chair was stripped right back and rebuilt from the inside out. I replaced all the springs, and painted the frame in a Farrow & Ball colour to give it a softer, more timeless look.

For the upholstery, I chose three luxurious fabrics to create layers of texture, colour and originality. The seat is covered in a beautifully soft textured grey velvet, while the inside features an embroidered designer linen depicting delicate p***y willow branches.

Now for the little secret...

The pearl grey silk satin used on the outside and piping was once my wedding dress.

It had spent years carefully folded away in a box under the bed until I finally decided it deserved a new life.

Well, I wasn't going to wear it again.

So out came the scissors.

Rather than leaving it hidden away in tissue paper, I gave it a second life as part of this chair. I think it's far happier being admired every day than spending the rest of its life tucked away in a box.

I love the idea that beautiful fabrics, just like beautiful furniture, can have more than one story to tell.

Which detail catches your eye first... the delicate embroidery, the pearl silk, or those beautifully carved cabriole legs?

Address

6 Station Road
Little Bytham
NG334RA

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://www.ellajenkinsdesigns.co.uk/

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