Adventures in Upholstery

If you've been following this blog, then you know my house is a never ending work in progress. I'm constantly starting new projects, making changes, and convincing my husband that pink is not the color of evil. I must admit however, I have a bad habit of starting projects and not following through (see this post regarding my bathroom makeover - which by the way, is coming along, slowly-but-surely). My other bad habit is forking over the money for someone else to do a job I could very well do on my own. It's a cross between laziness and lack of confidence that I can do it well enough that it won't look "homemade". Well, this past week (with the help of two amazing friends) I conquered that habit.

So about a year ago I finally found dining room chairs that I didn't hate and weren't $850 a piece. They come upholstered with the natural linen shown - which is bearable but boring. Here they are:

 

I bought them with the intention of having the seats reupholstered immediately to brighten them up a bit. Then I ran into the whole we-can't-pick-fabric-until-we-pick-a-wallcolor-and-johhny-hates-every-color-I-pick dilemma. And again, I wanted to brighten them up, but with a pattern I wouldn't get sick of in a month. So after seventeen years a few months of debating wall color, we made up our mind. It's a lightish green color that ties into our kitchen wallpaper (yes, I have WALLPAPER in my kitchen. It's adorable and I love it so shut your mouth). The choosing of the fabric was 100x easier. 

With fabric in hand, I was ready to finally have my chairs done. I googled all the local upholstery places and started calling around to get a quote. Considering you unscrew the pad, wrap the fabric around, staple it into place, and re-screw the pad, I was dumbfounded to hear the average price PER CHAIR was $50. FIFTY DOLLARS. So we're talking $400 total. (keep in mind, that does not include the fabric, which I purchased independently) Clearly, I need to quit my job immediately, go to trade school, and learn me some upholstery. And people say financial services is where it's at... psh!

Enter my dear friends/neighbors/mommies-extraordinaire - Stef and Megan. Stefani convinced me that we at least needed to try to do this on our own. And Megan's got a fashion degree in hand, so surely covering chairs can't be too different from covering people, right?? Well, let me tell you, this is one project I am so glad I gave in to. (Rather - allowed Meg and Stef to do most of the work while I provided moral support.) This was easy-peasy, and my chairs look FAB! If you have a boring old chair lying around, this is such an easy way to liven it up. All you need is a tiny bit of fabric, and a staple gun... and wine helps. So here's how it went:

Unscrew seats:

Tightly wrap fabric around the pad and staple into place:

 Re-screw your seat and viola!

FREE TIP - when you unscrew the pads, number each pad and chair with a post-it. The screw holes aren't always the same for each pad/chair combo.   

So to the ladies over at Haute Middleburg, if you're reading this - we're available for freelance ;)