ELEGANT NEEDLEPOINT SEAT COVER
FOR CLASSIC PIANO BENCH

 DESIGNING A SEAT COVER FOR A FAMILY HEIRLOOM

If you’re like me, you’ve inherited various furniture pieces from your family. It’s lovely to have these precious items that show a family’s history. After all, it’s all part of what make us who we are, and where we’ve come from.

But what if these items don’t appear to aesthetically 'fit' into your contemporary home?

I had this dilemma when we inherited an 80 year old mahogany parlour grand piano and piano bench. As a professional interior designer, I have always preferred modern furniture classics…… lots of marble and chrome and leather!

 How could I successfully add these cherished pieces?

First, I placed the piano at an angle in a separate corner of our living room, and hung a large brightly coloured abstract painting behind it.

By isolating it, thus giving it a place of honour, the piano’s classically sculptural shapes became more prominent.

Yet it was still integrated into the room’s décor, thanks to the positioning of the modern painting.

Then, I decided to create a needlepoint seat cover for the piano bench. The only decorative pattern in the room comes from an existing silk Tabriz Persian carpet. To keep a contemporary feel, I didn’t want to add another pattern.

 The carpet became my inspiration!

I developed the central design for the needlepoint seat cover by selecting
and rearranging various elements of the elegant Herati border of the carpet.
 
 

Smaller details from the carpet were used to create an elongated border to follow the rectangular shape of the piano bench seat. 

I made sure that every colour of needlepoint yarn matched the carpet perfectly.

My intention was to respect the various classical oriental carpet details which, in this case, comprise a central medallion with rosettes and palm leaves placed symmetrically on either side.

An exquisite needlepoint tapestry is created!

So now the traditional piano and bench 'connect' with the more contemporary elements of the room.

We now have a beautiful piece of needlepoint upholstery on our piano bench…a visual pleasure now and a family heirloom for generations of McLeods!
 

To finish the 'look' I wanted for my living room, I created a Tabriz Cushion as well from similar graphic elements of the carpet.

Have a look!

 

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WHAT ABOUT OTHER BACKGROUND COLOURS?

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Since putting the Tabriz Piano Bench with the dark blue background on the ZIVA website, I’ve had several requests for other background colours.

No Problem!

Each canvas is painted individually. So I can easily paint a different background colour on any design to suit your décor.

BLACK BACKGROUND

Here’s the Tabriz canvas with a black background as I painted it (photo above) for Nancy H. from Nebraska, USA……

And here’s Nancy beside her masterpiece!

Note the very clever use of straps to hold the piano bench seat pad to the bench top. Great idea!

Just as Nancy did, contact me and we can work together to develop a design that will work in your home.

 

 

IVORY BACKGROUND

What an elegant result with an ivory background!

It brings out the curved branches and the individual flowers of the design more, and creates a very delicate look.

To suit the dimensions of this piano bench, we used our classic Tabriz central panel, and extended the borders, particularly for the ends of the bench.

The soft cream background fits in beautifully with our client's interior.

What background colour would suit your décor?

TABRIZ MOTIF FOR SEAT BENCHES

REMEMBER ...These piano bench designs will also work beautifully on other seat benches!

The delicate TABRIZ design made up as a seat pad is well suited to this traditional mahogany settee above.

OR GO LARGER!

This Tabriz seat bench is a perfect example of how we customize our designs!

We took our Tabriz piano bench and reworked the intricate individual sections of borders and central motifs to create a seat bench almost 10 foot (3 metres) long!

For ease of hand-painting and stitching, we divided it into three sections, with a plain border separating each section, as shown below.

After developing the design concept, we proceeded with painting the individual panels. We sent them to our client as we completed each panel, so she could get started, and then we started painting the next one!

The photo below shows one of the end panels just being completed ready to ship out!

THE SEAT BENCH IS NOW COMPLETE!

 AND IT'S ABSOLUTELY STUNNING!

Go to our testimonials page to get our client's comments.

Click here to GO SHOPPING FOR SEAT COVERS with ZIVA!

To view other needlepoint seat covers in the ZIVA Collection, click here

Go back to Home Page to see other needlepoint designs in the ZIVA Collection.

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