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Don't try this at home

Getting a custom sofa made is normally a looong process, landing somewhere between 8-12 weeks is pretty standard, and hey, good things are worth waiting for right? Well sometimes I get thrown a curve ball and have to get things done in rather more of a crunched timeline. Take the set I did for the recent revival of RapCity on MuchMusic, where we decided to go with kind of a messed up but cool 'gentleman's club' feel. I'd found the perfect chair at UpCountry - the diamond tufted Kensington armchair in Vintage Cigar leather - and they happened to have two that I could snag, but the sofa was another matter. The one I fancied was the same style, the Kensington, but wasn't ready to go in the colour I needed (a slightly aged red) so, ummm, I had to get it custom made - in 10 days - to meet the show's launch date.  

After a bit of convincing the lovely team at Silva – who make the fabric version of the Kensington for UpCountry - said it could be done, and I have to say they did a stellar job. No surprise really, since over their 30 years in business they've worked on projects for the likes of Brian Gluckstein and Sarah Richardson (as well as a gazillion other great designers). So, without further ado, here are the results. And yes - major PHEW - everything was delivered in time. Devon at Silva kindly snapped a few shots for me of the sofa in progress, just to give you a bit of an idea of what’s under all that fabric (all those strings in the shot of the back show just how tedious and time consuming it is to pull and tie each button into place), and then the final screen grab shows the sofa and chairs on set with RapCity host T-RexXx, interviewing Cory Gunz.

Big thanks again to everyone at Silva and the crew at UpCountry for making it all happen!