Toulouse: this young upholsterer gives furniture a second life
Upholsterer, Laurence Lestrade transforms forgotten armchairs. It is an old trade and manual that she exercises from her home in the Chalets district of Toulouse.
It is in the Chalets district, in a small street near rue de la Concorde that Laurence works in the basement of her house converted into a workshop. The upholsterer spends hours working to give a second skin to old furniture.
Professional retraining for more manual work
A passion that has been part of his daily life for two and a half years. Bergeres, marquises, rather vintage armchairs are his specialty. This former commercial gave a turning point to her career. “I got fed up, I really wanted to do more manual work,” she says. It will be sewing with cushions that she has made for her daughters, to which her passion for antiquing combines. Laurence then embarked on the adventure of professional retraining, trained at the Institute of Arts and Crafts in Revel.
The transformation of old furniture
Remaking armchairs is physical work but above all long-term: it takes about twenty-four hours of actual work to transform an armchair. Laurence responds to orders from her customers who are both old and young. “I like when there is a story, when someone entrusts me with his grandfather’s furniture, for example,” she explains. This decoration enthusiast likes to wear modern fabrics to restore the shine to the furniture she is renovating. Her missions range from the simple change of fabric to the stripping of the chair from which she starts from the carcass.
A stapler, a boom that loves with the seeds to fix them or a crowbar to remove the nails are among his essentials. Beyond orders, the 45-year-old young woman likes to give free rein to her imagination with her creations. Laurence sells them in an arts and crafts shop in Lisle-sur-Tarn. Baptized Espolitequo, “that’s nice” in Occitan, the place brings together around thirty artisans for a direct sale.
To highlight her work, Laurence has an Instagram account, Secondskin.tapestry, on which she shares the armchairs that she transforms. “My account allows me to dust off the job,” concluded Laurence.