Yahoo Lifestyle 'Millions have sat on my old Glasgow subway couch'
How many people have sat on your couch? For Matt McCallum, it could easily be in the millions.
The 30-year-old has upcycled a seat from the old-style Glasgow subway trains which left the underground last summer.
The Metro-Cammell trains were first introduced in 1980 and the subway was dubbed the Clockwork Orange due to their bright orange carriages.
But they were gradually phased out to be replaced with new wheelchair-accessible modern cars.
One of the legacy carriages was moved to Glasgow's Riverside Museum as part of its transport exhibit and others were scrapped or put up for sale.
Matt was able to buy one of the old seats on Facebook Marketplace for £150.
"I've probably sat on this couch before and so have lots of other people," he said.
"It's a nice little bit of design history in your flat."
The architect from Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, said he collected the seat without knowing exactly what he planned to do with it.
"I thought they might look good as some kind of armchair," he said. "But I didn't have access to a workshop to design my own frame so I started thinking about a frame I could reuse.
"We have Ikea couches in the same style so I waited for one to come up second hand and got it for about £80.
"I got a three-seater and chopped it down to size and after a bit of trial and error, I managed to get it to work."
He attached the seat to the frame using some of the original hardware as well as some new parts from B&Q.
However, some parts of the upcycling project with the 44-year-old seat were slightly trickier.
One of the biggest jobs of the project was cleaning decades of dirt off the seat.
When he first collected it, Matt said: "Every time I touched it, my hand came away covered in soot.
"And some bits of soot fly out when I peel back the velcro on the back, so I'll just need to keep cleaning it until I'm happy."
Clockwork orange
The Glasgow subway opened in 1896 and was renovated with the well-known orange carriages in the 1970s.
They were officially introduced to passenger service on 16 April 1980.
Railway manufacturer Metro-Cammell created 33 carriages for the subway, and eight additional carriages were built in 1992 to make all trains three carriages long.
Last year, contractors Stadler Rail put the old carriages up for sale for £5,000 and agreed to waive the fee for charities.
They were taken in by nurseries, an art centre and a restauranteur.
In June, Glaswegians bid an emotional farewell to the carriages they had grown accustomed to for decades.
"There's something quite nice about having the exact object in your living room," Matt said. "It tells a story.
"People have been sitting on these seats for decades and it goes to show how hard-wearing they are.
"This kind of fabric, moquette, is chosen for bus seats and transport because it's resilient, hard-wearing and easily cleanable. But I've borrowed a carpet cleaner from my mum and I've just been going over it until I'm happy with it."
Interior designer Anna Campbell Jones, who is also a judge on "Scotland's Home of the Year", designed the seat pattern on the legacy trains.
The old chairs feature 100% mohair upholstery and Scottish leather.
Matt said he usually tried to find interesting furniture second hand.
"There's so much naff stuff out there that's made in a factory and shipped out to the big suppliers for thousands of pounds," he said.
"But I'm quite proud of the nice stuff we have in our flat that's from a charity shop or Facebook Marketplace.
"I like the hunt of it and it's nice to save something that would just end up in the street or in landfill."
