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Hello, friends! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Here in southern Ohio, we saw something we hadn't seen in quite awhile - the sun! It was still chilly, but the brighter days gave me the energy I needed to get busy on a few projects. The big project I'm working on right now is recovering my dining room chairs. I've covered them before, but that was about 13 years ago, and somehow I don't remember it taking as long as it's taking me this time. Time heals all wounds, I suppose, including memories of DIY disasters. I have to cover all of the seats, as well as both sides of the chair backs, and it's taking for-EV-er. I'm not quite ready to share photos yet, but I'm halfway finished, so it will be soon.
Since I have chairs on the brain right now, I thought I'd share with you a chair makeover I did about a year ago. It's a pre-blog project, so I really don't have pictures of the process, but I'll try to walk you through it. I had a pair of basic, boring wicker chairs purchased at Pier 1 about ten years ago.
As you might have guessed, the cream colored fabric on the cushions is not only boring, but impractical in a house full of chocolate loving girls.
When we moved, I didn't really have a good space to put the pair of chairs, so I decided to put one in an empty corner in my younger daughter's bedroom. In order to fit into the bright, fresh color scheme of the room, the chair needed a serious face lift. Her room is a light turquoise color (Behr Timeless Tales mixed at a 50% formulation), with accents of green, black, yellow and white. I decided to start the makeover process by painting the wicker chair frame. I used this apple green spray paint.
Two coats of paint and the frame was ready to go.
Next, it was time to change out the cover on the cushion. My daughter loves nature and animals and the color blue, so I thought this fabric from JoAnn's would be perfect.
I removed the cover from the cushion. A zipper in back made it easy to take off.
From there I carefully took the cushion apart using a seam ripper. The reason I was so careful was that I wanted all of the pieces to be in perfect condition so I could use them as patterns for the new cushion. There were only five pieces, so it was pretty easy. After I made my pattern pieces, I sewed them all together with upholstery thread. I'm not the greatest seamstress in the world, but I am a pretty logical person, so it wasn't hard to figure out how to reassemble everything. If you are attempting a similar project and think you may have difficulty figuring out how to sew everything back together, you may want to take pictures of the how original cushion cover is put together before you tear it apart. That way you'll have something to refer to if you get stumped. I do this with all kinds of DIY projects.
When everything was put together, it looked like this.
With a little styling, this is what it looks like now.
This chair is such a pretty and practical way to fill what would otherwise be an empty corner. What little girl wouldn't want a cozy reading nook in her bedroom? I could picture a navy blue or red chair with a striped cushion in a boy's bedroom. The possibilities are endless, really. Now that I'm thinking about it, I still have that second wicker chair that could use a little added personality... Stay tuned to see what I do with it.
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