Every chair tells a story at talented upholsterer's Barnard Castle studio

Hotch Potch House Upholstery, in Barnard Castle, is an antidote to the throwaway society. In a studio cluttered with sewing paraphernalia, offcuts and fabric samples, Glynis Manning brings her enormous store of creativity to bear, recycling old furniture into unique and covetable pieces that would sit just as well in a modern new-build as a traditional stone-built Teesdale farmhouse.

Glynis Manning in her workroom at Hotch Potch Upholstery

“I love getting in a piece of furniture – be that a customer’s own chair or one from the vintage stock we carefully source – and making it into something to fall in love with all over again,” says the 63-year-old.

“Vintage furniture frames were built to last and the rest can be restored to full comfort or even adapted to individual requirements.”

And “individual” is what master upholsterer Glynis excels in. When I visit she is putting the finishing touches to a fantastical story chair commissioned by Yorkshire children’s author Daisa Morgan, recreating the magical world of Fingley from Daisa’s books. It’s beautiful.

Chair upholstered in Abraham Moon Melton wools Earth collection, Fire, with grey multi-spot back and cushion

Proddy mat stool, available with beech or oak legs, £250

“I’ve loved using lots of techniques in this chair, including needle felting Daisy Mountain, making a dragon to perch on the back of the chair, and Steve – my partner – has made an amazing tree with beautiful spreading roots for the back of the chair. The finishing touches were hundreds of hand-cut oak leaves and a beautiful Pegacorn (a flying unicorn).”

An earlier commission, a storytelling chair, was for Barnard Castle’s Witham Hall. It stands in the entrance corridor

l and has become quite a talking point; when visitors discover it was created just around the corner, they often turn up at Glynis’s workshop to see what else she is up to.

“The storytelling chair took on a life of its own, growing out of an initial plan for a tree on the back of the chair,” says Glynis. “I think of it as the Teesdale Chair, with its representations of the River Tees, the wildlife of the area and the beautiful tree dominating the whole piece, again with hundreds of hand-cut leaves.” Friends of the couple did the proddy for the wild flower meadow seat, another felted the birds and animals, another made the fairies.

But while these are flights of fantasy, Glynis also makes practical, but beautiful furniture for the home. Her proddy mat footstools combine the modern and traditional; wing chairs in Abraham Moon fabrics have quirky, bright buttons to give them an edge.

But if you are considering giving new life to an old and battered favourite chair, what really matters is what lies beneath, says Glynis. After all, there’s no point in splashing out on beautiful fabric if the skeleton of the chair is near to collapse.

“Fine fabrics, design flair and good workmanship will restore a piece to pride of place, but even furniture bought for several hundreds of pounds may not be worth recovering,” she says. “We’ve seen modern furniture which includes softwoods and even cardboard formers to give chair or sofa arms shape. Older furniture, in contrast, was built to last and has often been recovered many times. You can’t beat a solid hardwood frame and proper joints – which can always be repaired if they’ve loosened a little over decades of use.”

Glynis came to upholstery via a meandering path which has seen her living all over the country, including in the Tyne Valley. “Parts of every summer in my childhood were spent in South Shields and the North-East has always felt like my spiritual home,” she says.

Animal magic: Glynis also produces gifts made from wool

After a career in adult and community education, just before her 50th birthday, she started a four-year degree at Newcastle in Folk and Traditional Music – “a lifelong passion – I love the stories in songs” – before working as a freelance community arts practitioner. “I had always wanted to do upholstery, but somehow children and work always got in the way. Finally, when I was 59, I was awarded a bursary through the Heritage Skills Initiative to train full-time in an upholstery workshop in Cumbria, training specifically for someone who wanted to start their own upholstery business. And now, here I am.”

Hotch Potch Upholstery, in Barnard Castle’s Hall Street, is Glynis’s creative hub. Partner Steve Parkes has the adjoining workshop where he does all kinds of furniture repairs and is developing a range of decorative wooden items for the home. A leather worker specialising in hand-made shoes has taken a third workshop. The hope is that the final two studios will be taken by other craft/arts workers to create an ‘artisan hub’ on Hall Street.

“It’s a wonderful space to work in and display our work, fabrics and stock of vintage furniture,” says Glynis. “Customers seem to love coming in and choosing from the extensive range of fabrics we have, including lots of lovely pure wool fabrics from Abraham Moon, Art of the Loom and Windsor & York, Bute, Warwick and of course, a small stock of Lake District wool.”

Glynis is almost evangelical about wool. “It’s the perfect furnishing fabric,” she enthuses. “The structure of the fibre is overlapping scales, which trap dirt on the surface, making it easy to clean. It is soft, durable, resilient, naturally resists water, is inherently fire retardant with no need for chemicals, has perfect eco credentials and you just want to touch it. It also comes in so many beautiful colours and patterns.”

Knowing how difficult it is to make a choice, Glynis encourages customers to take their time and have samples sent to them at home to consider in their light, with other soft furnishings. “It’s a big investment and deserves time and patience,” she says. “I love it when people come back in to say how much they love their new-look furniture.”

Glynis discovered some beautiful fabric made from the fleeces of their own sheep by a group of hill farmers in the Lake District. “I particularly enjoyed using this for a pair of 1950s cocktail chairs for a customer, and loved the vibrant fabrics she chose to make the buttons, which made the whole thing ‘pop’,” she says. “I love helping customers re-imagine their old, sometimes drab, inherited furniture and, through careful selection of fabrics, make it something to fall in love with for their own home.”

Glynis and Steve’s own home is in remote Upper Weardale. “We see more sheep than cars – in fact we see hardly any cars. I love the view in either direction from the top of Chapel Fell, the Roof of England,” she says. “We feel so lucky to have such spectacular views all around us, both at home and work. Barney is a lovely town, with little nooks and crannies to discover and lots of independent shops.”

At home, says Glynis, they have some lovely old furniture. “It needs reupholstering,” she laughs, “but to do that I need time and I need to choose my fabric. Every time I look at our wool sample books with customers, I find something new to love and making a decision is very difficult. One day…”

Hotch Potch House Upholstery, Studio One, Hall Street, Barnard Castle, County Durham, DL12 8JB

T: 01833-605-055; W: hotchpotchhouseupholstery.co.uk