Projects Galore: The Chairs Unveiled

I've been very busy trying to redo my family room. When we decided to move I knew I needed something different but I really couldn't decide on a style. While in New York we passed this window:



I fell in love and made it my summer project to replicate the feel of it as closely as possible. I'm not quite done but here are a couple projects from my room.



Devin's dad and I took these pictures while in Playa Del Carmen this Spring. I used spray adhesive to stick them to foam board and cut them out with and exacto knife. I printed them off at Costco for a couple bucks each. The sign is just a piece of wood (a shelf from Ikea for $3), painted it blue, used glaze and brown paint to antique it, painted the letters then sanded in the letters to weatherize it a little bit. This sign idea came from http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/. I'm loving that website.

Next up, the chairs. I bought them off Craigslist for $10 each. I knew it would be quite an undertaking to recover them but new chairs were at least $200 each and any print that would come close to matching my color-scheme was super-boring. Here's the only post I read about reupholstering. It really isn't rocket science, just time consuming. You just pay attention as you rip apart the chair and then put it back together the way it came apart. Easy-peasy. I'm not saying they are perfect but if you didn't know I'd done the work myself, you would never know. And I'm not all that special. These chairs just weren't that hard to figure out.

Here's the finished product. And here's one finished and one before we hacked into it.

Close-up of the blue and white hounds tooth I found in Boise for $6/yard.

Devin being a dear and pulling out staples for me. This was one of the most time-consuming parts of the entire job.

Spray painted the legs and arms using Kilz primer and Krylon spray paint. I left the fabric slightly attached the second time around to protect the foam and batting.

Use the original pieces as a pattern. Leave at least a couple extra inches all the way around.

Tools I used: Cardboard stripping, $8 staple gun, staple remover tool, needle nose pliers, hammer.

Basically just fit in the fabric and staple it into place. The cording/piping was relatively easy also. I don't know how much detail everyone wants here. If you have any questions feel free to email me or post. I took a ton of pics so I can always do a follow up post if there's enough interest. But the moral of the story is: If a pregnant lady can do it, so can you!