An old Glasgow Subway seat has become a stunning furniture piece following a DIY upcycling project.
Matt McCallum, 30, says he “jumped at the chance” to own a piece of the well-loved 1977 Subway stock after the trains were pulled from service in June 2024. After coming across the seat on Facebook Marketplace, the architect says he toyed with turning the seat into a dining bench or booth, before seeing a piece of IKEA furniture that would suit the Subway seat perfectly
He said: “I saw it and I thought it was amazing. It was around the time they were bringing in the new Subway cars. It’s nice fabric with a nice texture and a nice pattern and colour. It’s a shame that they were going. I jumped at the chance and thought I’d get it and figure out what to do with it later.”
Matt “jumped at the chance” to own a piece of the city’s history
(Image: Matt McCallum)
As reported by Glasgow Live, the seat – which is now placed in Matt’s Merchant City living room – sat under a window in the spare room while he waited patiently for an example of the mid-century wood-framed bench to come up second-hand. Matt, who borrowed his mum’s carpet cleaner to get fifty years of underground grime out of the seat, said the chair is his most complex interior design project yet.
He said: “I’ve done little bits and pieces, but nothing like taking something that doesn’t work and building it up like this before. I expected the water to come out black, but even after the first pass it just didn’t look good. I think that’s why the patterns are designed the way they are, they disguise the dirt, and it didn’t look dirty.
“Occasionally after picking it up I’d find a bit of black soot on my hands. I had never really appreciated this, but you can see how the seats fix into the Subway and that the seat covers come off, so you could take it off and replace or clean it.”
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The unique piece is not up for sale, with Matt intending for it to be a feature of his living room for years to come. He said: “It’s going to get a lot less traffic in the living room than it did on the Subway, so a good clean now and it’ll be fine.”
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