Reupholstered Ladies Armchair

Heya Nesters!

Now, I promised I wouldn't just write about wedding stuff, so today I am keeping to my promise.  Today is back to my bread and butter … my roots … my thats right, upholstery.

 

 A few months back, I splurged on Selfie-Christmas present and signed up for another upholstery class at Upholstery On Broadway. I happened to be prepared to start class with another freebie trash pick.  This was a chair Matt and his fellow gym owners found while they were cleaning out the space that is now the gym.  He brought it home to me, because he knew I could make something of it.  And I was so excited to finally give it new life.

I originally had spray painted the frame with Rust-Oleum Metallic Pearl Mist Spray Paint and man-o-man did that turn out poorly.  Not only did it not cover it evenly color-wise, {and not to toot my own horn here, but I am pretty well versed in spray painting.} but it clumped up and felt like a gritty sandpaper surface.  You may be able to look closely and see the top right picture that shows this first step.  Bad news bears.     I opted back to my old fashioned ways and got a small can of a high gloss medium gray paint, sanded down the horrible texture that had been left behind and painted over it with a 1" angled brush.

I had to completely strip this chair down before building it back up with its original springs. I needed to use 8 way hand ties  {Which gave me blisters for weeks.}  before covering with burlap, a finger roll and artificial horse hair.  I filled in the gap left by the finger roll with cotton, and then covered the whole seat with 1" high density foam.  I re-webbed the back in both directions {not as tightly as the seat, since it doesn't hold the same amount of weight} and then applied the burlap over that as well.

I had purchased this fabric a while back, Gazebo by Braemore in Cloud, from Mary Jo's. I had bought 3 yds for a table cloth for our dining room table last spring and I knew I had just enough left to do the majority of this chair.

I also had just a wee bit of a Premier Print Twill Storm Gray and White Canopy Stripe from Fabric.com left laying around.  I knew I loved the two together and wanted the chair to look different pushed in, than pulled out.  Originally I wanted floral on the back, and then stripes on the seat and inside back.  But when I laid everything out, this just made more sense.

And after 8 weeks of this labor of love.... I brought Alice home. {I don't know if I like Alice... but she's kind of Alice in Wonderland-y, no?  Suggestions welcome!!} And it just so happened that Matt and I went shopping at Home Goods right before I brought Alice home and lookie what we found...

That's right! $800 for my chairs sister.  Mine was not the cheapest in the world, because the class is definitely a splurge, but I got my hands dirty, got out of the house, and get to say to people that "I made this."  And man-o-man does that feel good to say.

Hope you guys are having a good week!!

xoxo
G