Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Progress on New Chairs

Remember the chairs I scored a couple of weekends ago?

I have been missing in action for days, so I thought I would take a minute to share some of what I've been up to. All of it's good, don't worry. Not only have I been working on the new chairs, but the master bedroom is in the works too, Lord help me. I'll probably show you that progress on the bedroom soon too, and hopefully a reveal not too long after that. But anyway, I'm talking chairs tonight. I finally narrowed down my fabric choices.....and they finally arrived yesterday (I ordered online). This linen in oatmeal was in the running along with a turquoise linen. Then I found this green and it finally hit me what I wanted to do.


The chairs are all primed and ready to be painted. I hope to paint tomorrow, and these beauties will be a glossy white. Even in the primed state I was happy with my decision to go white. The existing foam is in great condition, but I wanted to beef it up a bit, I found the beefy foam at Hobby Lobby. Oh, and I took off the metal doo-dads and instantly knew they are not going back on...filled the little nail holes, and it's as if they never happened!



I wanted the chairs to be very tailored. They are a little fancy (for me), so I wanted the fabric to be fairly modern and fresh looking. I didn't want them to lean on the french side either, that's definitely not my style. So instead of rushing into anything, I took some time to find exactly what I wanted. So here is my idea, use the oatmeal linen and then some how trim it out with the green. Remember now, that I am not a seamstress, so I had to figure it out. It's taken all evening to figure it out, but I finally did.



I recovered the seat in the linen.




It looked pretty good, especially with the added foam.




Then I made the green fabric into trim/piping...I cut it on the bias and everything, although I had to look up how to do that! :) I used the cotton filler cording from Wrights. I think it's generally used for pillows, but it worked like a charm for this too.




Finally, I stapled it all around, right along with the linen, flipped it over and it looked great. Surprisingly, what was in my head actually came out. So I've done the first one and now I have five more to do. I've got to get some additional fabric on order (since I finally made a decision) and then I will be all finished with my Goodwill chairs. I'm so excited! I have one other little idea about painting, I'll be doing a test on that tomorrow!


Thanks for sticking around and reading, I know my postings have been erratic. I hope you'll come back and see how these turn out!
On a side note, did you watch the first episode of Design Star? Luckily the full episode is on the HGTV website so I am able to watch.....That's the only thing I miss about not having cable, HGTV! I think the designers will give us something to watch this season!



15 comments:

  1. These chairs are looking SO beautiful, I especially like the green piping!

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  2. Love the linen, Michelle! The green cording makes for a nice touch and the chairs look great white. I can't wait to see them all done!

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  3. The contrasting piping was inspired!

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  4. These chairs are such an awesome find and I LOVE the fabric choice! I have some of the same linen fabric lined up for a chair I working on. I can't wait to see the finished set!

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  5. They look great! I am on the lookout for new dining chairs as well. I love the white paint and linen seat covers. Stop by and link up if you have time!
    Mary

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  6. The piping gives the chairs a pop of WOW! I can't wait to see the entire room put together:)

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  7. Oh these are gorgeous!!! I absolutely love the color combination with the white chairs...great job! Donna Tullis

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  8. Love that contrasting piping. Now I need a step by step with photos tutorial. I am an idiot and very visual. :) I have 10 chairs I need to recover and I am having a party the 20th of August. Yikes. Love love love what you have done and I really like your blog.
    Pam

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  9. I love these! My favorite part is the different colored piping!

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  10. They look great! Love your blog by the way!

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  11. I can't believe the transformation! I would never have thought they would turn out this cute. I love the green piping. Thanks for sharing.

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  12. What an awesome transformation! I especially like the green piping - genius! Great job!

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  13. Wow, those look great! I love the touch of green you put on them. It is always fun to get one done, and then you realize how much more work you have to do to finish. But oh so worth it! Can't wait to see them all finished.

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  14. I have very similar chairs which I have planned to do something similar with, but have been stuck on fabric ideas, this may just give me the push I need. How long did it take to prime and paint all the chairs? I had already painted and reupholstered one months back but it took so long that I haven't done the others!

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  15. Thank you for all the lovely comments everyone!
    Colleen, I plan on an in depth post about the process, but it has taken about a week to prime/paint all of them. I do know what you mean, it has been quite a job. It took me a while to select fabric too, the linen is not cheap...I didn't want to make a mistake! Good luck!

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Thank You for taking the time to comment! Because of the insane amount of spam comments, I had to stop anonymous comments-sorry for the inconvenience.
Michelle