navy chair rehab | guest room redo part 1

This chair belonged to my great-grandmother. I remembered it sitting in her formal living room, but I don't remember it being in this bad of shape. After her estate sale, there was a lot of odd & end pieces that were left to go to Goodwill, and this chair was one of them.

At the time I was living in a 1 bedroom apartment and ended up with an entire storage building full of stuff for "when I bought a house". Now that I'm married and I've had a house for 4 years, it's time to start doing something with the remaining pieces! This chair has been in my guest room and I think that's where it should stay. I am beginning my guest room revamp with this chair. I had initially thought that I was going to go with just creme & white, but I decided that it needed a pop of color, so I decided on navy.

When we moved in, my husband & brother-in-law painted almost every room except the 2 bathrooms. After 4 years, we're rethinking our paint choices. We've painted our hall bath, and re-painted the living room, so now it's time for the guest room. I have to be really careful with this room, because it has to double as my craft storage.

One thing I do know, is I like the idea of having a desk in the guest room. Not only is it nice for guests to have a place to set up their laptops, etc, but it gives me a place to put my sewing machine, other than the kitchen table. This chair is going to remain my desk chair. Although, I am going to have to be more careful when I'm working with paints...I had to take some mineral spirits to some places on the wood that were somehow pink!

Here's how I did it...

Of course I chose a color that I didn't have in my fabric collection, so I had to make a trip to Hobby Lobby, (oh darn,) however I lucked out because duck cloth was 30% off! (Which is what I used, it's a little more sturdy than cotton & to me wears better.)

I also found some pretty decorative tacks that I thought would go well. They weren't as big as the original ones, but they were only $1.99 for 48. Which I didn't think I needed that many, but after a few attempts, I learned that they give you extras because you end up with some bent ones! Or at least that's my theory.

Here is what I used:

• 3/4 yard duck cloth (or as much fabric as you think you'll use)
• box of decorative furniture tacks (optional)
• staple gun  & staples
• flat head screw drive (for prying up old staples)
• needle nose pliers (for removing staples)
• magnet (for collecting staples)
• hammer (for tapping in staples the rest of the way)
• scissors 
• fabric glue

First I turned the chair over on my kitchen table and made an assessment. The chair bottom fabric was still in really good shape, so I decided to try and salvage it. I started prying up & removing the staples. 

Plus, I found this really nifty tag!!! I e-mailed the pic to my great-aunt and she told me that my great-grandmother bought a majority of her furniture from this place because her brother worked there. She said if she had to guess the chair was at least 50 years old.

The staples that I couldn't pry up & pull out, I just tried to be really careful when pulling the black cloth through, It's basically the same stuff that's under your couches or your box springs...unless you once had a cat.

 

After I took off the black fabric the bottom had a wood frame, but was essentially cardboard with some fabric straps! I didn't feel like messing with all that, plus I figured it had held up through some pretty rough crafting, and 50+ years, it was good for a few more. I undid the "cushion tacks" which turned out to be basically fabric covered brads, and removed them all! There were also some decorative ones around the frame that turned out to be more tack like, so I removed them as well so I'd have a smooth surface to cover. I opted not to take off the fabric, for 1, I had an inkling that it was holding in the foam, and 2, I just didn't feel like it. Plus the fabric would be a good "base layer" vs batting. 

Then I set it upright and laid my fabric choice over it.

 

 I wasn't really feeling it with the wood tone, but the wood was in such good shape, I mean barely even a scratch, that I hated to paint it. So I sent some pics to my husband and friend and sat down with a cup of tea to mull it over. I decided to listen to my husband, and my better judgement and not to paint the wood.

After I decided continue, I laid my fabric out both directions to see which direction was going to make the best use of my fabric. Once I decided I turned it back over and started stapling around one side just to have enough to start to stretch over the front & back & start to staple. I left the back for last since there was probably going to be a fair amount of folding & tucking for the back. 

Once I got to the legs, it got a little tricky, but not too bad. I just made a slit down the front, short of the end of the leg, and one each way to allow for a little ore flexibility. There isn't a sure fit way to do this, not that I've found anyway, it just takes a lot of "dry runs" and manipulating...and folding before you fabric glue & staple.  (I had a piece of broken cardboard, so I decided to patch it with some duct tape. Not ideal, but it was 6 am & I was determined to finish!

 

  

 

 After folding the raw cut edges under and finding a placement that I liked, I just did a little bead of fabric glue to seal it against the fabric & hold the fabric from fraying. Fabric glue is super durable. It's made to be washed & dry cleaned, so don't under estimate it's value & skip this step!

Then I started on the back after I had the sides and front done.

 

 

 

As I said before, not sure fit way to do it, just try to cut as much excess fabric out as possible, with out taking too much. You can always take more if you need it. Remember to fold under your cut edges. Fold and tuck to where you want it before stapling it underneath. 

After I had everything stapled, I stapled the black fabric back over the bottom, nifty little tag still in tact!

I set it up, so I could determine if it looked alright, and it did, so I went on to inserting my decorative tacks. I bought this entire box of 48 for only $1.99 at Hobby Lobby...I thought 48 was too many, well, turns out, they throw a few extras in for when you bend them beyond salvaging. Which for me was about 10. I found that when putting them in, you have to lightly tap them until they take hold of the wood, then try to get them in with as few strokes as possible. 

I didn't measure them out, I just kind of eyeballed them. I always get so tired by the end of the project and I'm ready for it just to be done. I didn't put the "tufts" back in the cushion. The duck cloth that I purchased wasn't wide enough for it. But I don't think that it suffered from lack of tufts one bit!

Tah-Dah!!! 

My total cost for this project was $7! My fabric was on sale, and since I only needed 3/4 yard it was less than $5, then my decorative tacks were only $1.99! Talk about thrifty! Who would have thought that $7 and a few hours would make all the difference in the world in this chair! And to think my brother-in-law kept wanting me to let him burn it! 

Recover, staple, glue!

egg-zactly!

I've made several different wreaths for a hair stylist over the past several months. All small wreaths that she could hang on her mirror. I had done a fall one, then got requests for a Christmas one, and now Easter. I was determined not to spend any money on this project, so I raided my craft supplies and came up with all the stuff to make this!

I started out with the idea of using cardboard as base of the wreath, but then I remembered I had handy-dandy foam board left over from a previous project. So I used some bowls to trace both the outer & inner circle. Turned out (not planned) that the smaller bowl was exactly 1/2 the circumference of the larger bowl. I think that it gave it really good symmetry.

Once I cut out my larger circle, (I scored it really well with a razor knife then cut last few layers with scissors,) I found my cross section and measured my circumference of the smaller bowl & made marks around the radius from the center of the circle to get the placement of the smaller circle. 

I cut "pizza slices" in the smaller circle & then the "crust" of the pizza just punched out. It left the edges a little rough, but we'll take care of that soon enough. 

 

 

(Side note: I do most of this stuff after my husband leaves for work in the wee hours of the morning, so if the occasional slipper or pj pants get in the picture, don't judge!)

You don't want white foam board, or brown cardboard showing through your pretty colored eggs, so I opted to spray paint the the foam board a pretty pink. 

I was being super impatient, so I broke out my hair dryer & it was dry enough to flip & paint the other side in just a few minutes. (I painted the other side because it was going to be hanging against a mirror.) I took the blow dryer to the other side as well, because I was still impatient. 

I found some quilt binding strips that were left over from other projects & thought that they would be hide the ugly edges of the foam board. (You could use ribbon too! or take the time to make your edges pretty.) I cut them to size & started with the hot glue. 2" or so at a time of course.

 

 After I had lined the edges with both of ugly edges I took these plastic eggs that I had bought for my Easter wreath & didn't use and hot glued them down. Just one little line of hot glue will do the trick. I thought that I might have issues with the eggs trying to come open, so I made sure that the glue seem was not on the little piece that held them together. 

 

I alternated the direction that the eggs pointed to hopefully fill more space. 

I thought it looked a little bare, so I had these ribbon roses that I thought would look cute at the top. So I cut them & individually glued them down in between the spaces of the eggs on top. 

 

I still didn't like the way it was looking so I went back to the craft room & grabbed some pink tulle. It just so happens it was almost the same color as the spray paint that I used. I put a dab of hot glue down & wadded the tulle up & stuck it. I did that in between each egg on both the inside circle & the outside one to make it look fuller. 

  

I thought it still needed something. The plastic eggs had 2 holes on the top of each one, so I thought about hanging a few from the center, but it was too full...so I came up with the idea of stringing an egg by tulle, then taking some t-shirt paint that I had & painted a "M" for the hair stylist's initial. 

   

I hung it on a door knob to dry & that gave me another idea! 2 of my girlfriends work in cubicles. If you've ever worked in one, they're drab, usually an ugly grey or green & often accompanied by horrid florescent lighting. I took 2 hot pink eggs, strung some black tulle through the tops & painted their initials with black t-shirt paint. Cute little cubical art!

Any way, I took a piece of quilt binding left over & looped it & glued it to the back of the wreath. Once the egg was dry I glued it to the back as well. And wha-la!

This wreath didn't cost me anything to make and is super cute! Here's the breakdown if I would have had to purchase supplies:

• cardboard (free)/foam bard - less than $5
• Easter eggs $0.88/pack (2 packs purchased for other project)
• Flower ribbon - (can buy by the yard at hobby lobby or by the roll at Wal-Mart..this was the reminiscence of a roll, so I'm going to say around $2
• tulle - $3.99 at Hobby Lobby, not on sale, $1.99 on sale
• T-shirt paint - (I've had this for a while, but I believe it was around $5 for 5 or 6 colors),  but you can use a paint pen, or just acrylic paint. You could even hang a painted wooden letter from the middle.
• Spray paint around $3

If you used cardboard, or something else you had on hand, and get your tulle on sale, you could do this entire project for around $10!

Remember, always raid your existing supplies!