Pretty Little Green Things

You know the saying, the shoemaker’s children go barefoot?  Well, sometimes that’s how I feel about my house.  The projects I do for work are amazing, but my own abode is sometimes lacking in style.  Sure we did a bit of a renovation and the walls and doors look much better.  But I have drapery left to hang, dining chairs that have been begging for reupholstery and my aforementioned lounge chair that has to go (apologies to my friend Lizz who has the same chair).  So I’ve decided that I’m going to tackle one project a week and finish up this house.  I may not finish each one every week, but you’ll get a peek at some of my DIY projects and I’ll finally get this ball rolling.

So first up, my dining chairs.  Here’s the before picture.

We inherited these bad boys from my husband’s grandmother.  I love the shape of the curvy shape of the frame and for both sentimental and aesthetic reasons, I didn’t want to change the wood color at all.  One less project to tackle too!  The seat fabric however was a different story.  It was stained from years of grandkids plus the light colored ikat-ish print is really not my taste.

Here’s a close-up of the old fabric.  See what I mean?  Time for a change.

Fortunately, I also inherited a large piece of silk from my best friend’s mother that I think was destined to be a sari.  It’s colorful, unique and oh so perfect for these chairs.  So here goes, my first attempt at reupholstery.

So first things first, I had to rip off all the old covers.  I cheated a bit because I could see the previous bright pink under the ones I ripped off, but I just couldn’t bring myself to take them off too and open up a potential can of worms.

Covers are off!

Thankfully the previous reupholsterer had added a bit of cotton batting to the top of the chairs, so all I had to do was put my new upholstery on.  If you look really close, you can see a bit of the pink fabric underneath.

And here goes nothing!  This was my first experience with a staple gun, and let me tell you, I sort of wish I had purchased an electric one instead.  My hand is all kinds of sore!

The new covers are on and the chairs are almost done!  All that I have to do here is add a bit of trim at the bottom to cover up the staples.

Ta da!  All done.  I decided to go with a navy blue trim to contrast against the lighter silk ikat.  I’m going to try to take a better picture tomorrow morning.  It was dark out by the time I finished up and my nighttime shots never seem to turn out as well.

Here’s a detail of the chair seat.  You can see the trim a bit better in this shot.

All in all, I’m super excited about my new chairs.  It was a bigger and tougher project than I anticipated.  I give reupholsterers and furniture makers so much credit for the amazing work they do.  As for me, I’m taking the rest of the night off.  And tomorrow I might just treat myself to a well earned manicure to clean up my hands after all that staple gunning.

You know the saying, the shoemaker’s children go barefoot?  Well, sometimes that’s how I feel about my house.  The projects I do for work are amazing, but my own abode is sometimes lacking in style.  Sure we did a bit of a renovation and the walls and doors look much better.  But I have drapery left to hang, dining chairs that have been begging for reupholstery and my aforementioned lounge chair that has to go (apologies to my friend Lizz who has the same chair).  So I’ve decided that I’m going to tackle one project a week and finish up this house.  I may not finish each one every week, but you’ll get a peek at some of my DIY projects and I’ll finally get this ball rolling.

So first up, my dining chairs.  Here’s the before picture.

We inherited these bad boys from my husband’s grandmother.  I love the shape of the curvy shape of the frame and for both sentimental and aesthetic reasons, I didn’t want to change the wood color at all.  One less project to tackle too!  The seat fabric however was a different story.  It was stained from years of grandkids plus the light colored ikat-ish print is really not my taste.

Here’s a close-up of the old fabric.  See what I mean?  Time for a change.

Fortunately, I also inherited a large piece of silk from my best friend’s mother that I think was destined to be a sari.  It’s colorful, unique and oh so perfect for these chairs.  So here goes, my first attempt at reupholstery.

So first things first, I had to rip off all the old covers.  I cheated a bit because I could see the previous bright pink under the ones I ripped off, but I just couldn’t bring myself to take them off too and open up a potential can of worms.

Covers are off!

Thankfully the previous reupholsterer had added a bit of cotton batting to the top of the chairs, so all I had to do was put my new upholstery on.  If you look really close, you can see a bit of the pink fabric underneath.

And here goes nothing!  This was my first experience with a staple gun, and let me tell you, I sort of wish I had purchased an electric one instead.  My hand is all kinds of sore!

The new covers are on and the chairs are almost done!  All that I have to do here is add a bit of trim at the bottom to cover up the staples.

Ta da!  All done.  I decided to go with a navy blue trim to contrast against the lighter silk ikat.  I’m going to try to take a better picture tomorrow morning.  It was dark out by the time I finished up and my nighttime shots never seem to turn out as well.

Here’s a detail of the chair seat.  You can see the trim a bit better in this shot.

All in all, I’m super excited about my new chairs.  It was a bigger and tougher project than I anticipated.  I give reupholsterers and furniture makers so much credit for the amazing work they do.  As for me, I’m taking the rest of the night off.  And tomorrow I might just treat myself to a well earned manicure to clean up my hands after all that staple gunning.