How I Did The Chairs

Well thank you all for all the loverly comments on the new-to-me chair transformations, they are already a great help to our family, I didn't even realize how much we needed them! I wanted to get into the deets of how I did them. For the primer, I used Rustoleum Clean Metal primer. Yes, you read that right...primer for metal. Why? Just cuz. No. I'm kidding....I discovered metal primer covers all sorts of slick surfaces from ceramics to well, chairs. It covers like a dream. You'll see. I get it at Walmart and it will be next to the 'Rusty Metal' primer, don't get that, get 'Clean Metal' primer, it's white. For the paint I used Valspar Gloss white. Have you seen that Valspar has a line of spray paints at Lowe's now? It's not a super new thing, I just think it makes sense, I use the Valspar line of paints often and now I like the spray paint too. I'm glad they've dabbled in the spray paint realm. If you are a spray paint fanatic like me, go check out all the different colors.

I considered buying a paint sprayer, but honestly, I just don't paint enough furniture to justify the expense. I did invest in a spray paint handle though, this baby is a gem! It was practically like using a sprayer! This really saved my hands, I think it was under three dollars. I highly recommend grabbing one.

Now typically I'm a Krylon girl, all the way, but this is a little different than spraying my latest knick knack. These are chairs that will be used, moved, hit, scraped, kicked, knocked over, dragged, jumped in, etc, because I live with a bunch of heathens boys. They are rough on furniture, especially that little one. I have used the Valspar spray paint before and noticed that the finish seems thicker, for lack of better word. It says that it is quick drying, I have to disagree with that....compared to Krylon, it took twice as long to dry. But that's ok, in my opinion, I traded dry time for durability. Oh, and look at the shine. That's what I was after. It says it has the 'perfect finish', I do agree with that.

On to the seats. The foam on the existing seats were pretty wimpy so I wanted to add some foam to beef the seats up. I bought the foam at Hobby Lobby, but I saw it at Walmart as well. I bought the 1" roll of foam and cut it out using the wood as a template.

I used linen to cover the seats in an oatmeal color. It's neutral but has lots of personality with texture. The only real challenge is making sure it is straight, but it wasn't too bad. I used the original fabric as a pattern and used a staple gun to attach. The corners were a bear...I tried to get them as neat and straight as I could and stapled a lot.

The piping, for me, made this project really special. I use a lot of green and when I found this fabric, I was really excited to figure out how to incorporate it with the chairs.
However, out of everything....this was my problem area. See, I'm not a seamstress. There is a reason why the word STRESS is in the word seamstress, because it can be stressful!

At first, I cut the green fabric on the bias. After doing some research I found that fabric goes around corners better if it is cut on the bias, so that's what I did. Plus, I thought the weave of the linen would be contrasted beautifully if the piping was biased. So I cut all my fabric, joined all the ends together, and proceeded to sew the piping.

Problem. The fabric kept twisting...it wasn't smooth, and was not tight around the piping. I was sick to my stomach not to mention mad. I did some more research. Found out that I should be using a piping foot on my machine. Along with doing research, I emailed Suzanne. She suggested that I might be pulling and stretching the fabric while sewing, causing it to twist. Well, I didn't want to invest in a piping foot (30.00) for a little bit of piping for six chairs. SO. I decided to re cut all the fabric NOT on the bias. Don't worry, I've come up with an idea to use up all of the fabric I didn't use...So here is how I sewed the piping, not on the bias, and with a zipper foot. :)
Cut 2 1/2-3" of fabric:

Fold piping into the center of the fabric and slip under zipper foot:

I found that letting it sew a little on the angle got it tight enough. With the fabric just cut (not on the bias) there was no stretching and the fabric didn't twist.

To attach the piping to the seat, I used the staple gun, right over the linen. I started at the back and stapled around. I used my hand to feel the edges and flipped it over every so often to make sure it was looking good.






And look at this, the corners turned just fine! The bias cut wasn't even needed anyway! Although, I am trying to stop being so anal about the piping weave and the linen weave not contrasting like I wanted...I know no one would have noticed but me! :)

It turned out great and I love how it gave it a really finished look, and of course a great pop of color.

I was concerned about getting the piping to fit around the arms on the captains chairs, but it was completely fine! I just had to push it down a little bit and it looks really natural.

The groove in the wood looks like it wanted some piping! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by! If you have any additional questions, let me know in the comments.



6 Chairs...........Goodwill
Spray Primer.......Walmart
Spray Paint...........Lowe's
Spray Paint Handle...............Lowe's
Cotton cording for piping......Walmart from Wrights

Foam..............Hobby Lobby
Linen..........Fabric.com (click HERE)
Green Fabric...........Walmart



Did you miss the 'Before' pictures? Click HERE.

Wanna see a video on creating piping with a piping foot? Click HERE.

Chairs Are Done!

Well, without further adieu....the chairs are DONE! And so am I. The rest of the fabric arrived and I got busy finishing with the recovering of the seats and the piping. I think they turned out great, but not without some stress, frustration, and the worst: waiting. ;) I feel like I did right after I painted the kitchen cabinets...

Definitely a labor of love.
So here are a few before shots. Clearly, a dated set of dining chairs. A weird mix of dark stain and natural caning. The caning might have had a clear coat, but that's about it. The seat covers were original, and originally yucky.
When I saw them at the Goodwill, I hesitated, I knew they were going to be a big job and would take me a while, my stamina is still not built up since my surgery. I didn't rush, because when I rush I get overwhelmed, but on the other hand, I didn't want to look at these ugly beasts too long!

I took some real time deciding whether to paint or not. In the end, I didn't like how the wood of the table and the wood of chairs didn't jive, so finally I decided on a glossy white for the chairs. The table is a beautiful walnut, and the chairs; not so much. I love the look of white paint and wood, don't you? Plus, with the upper cabinets in the kitchen painted white, painting the chairs balanced out the whole area. I know it's hard to tell, but the kitchen and eating area are both one space. Dining/eating on one end, kitchen on the other.



Here they are with their shiny coat of glossy white, 100% linen for the seat covers and a wonderful shade of green for the piping. Once I was done doing the Kitchen Facelift, I used green, as an accent color and I have just loved it.
See how great the wood looks with the white?


Doing the piping was trial and error (heavy on the error), I've never actually done this before, but I'm working on a post that will explain how I did everything, including sources.


Anyway, I'm going to hush up now and let you enjoy the pictures. I still can't believe they are done!

Want to see more pictures? Click HERE. Stay tuned, I'll have the behind the scenes post and pictures ready soon!

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!