Recovery

Several weeks ago I tried my hand at furniture recovering. Grandma Rita, the master bargain hunter, bought this chair at a garage sale for me when I was in college. Originally it was yellow houndstooth. The upholstery was stained, so she showed me what she had laying around to recover it with--a peach polyester and this blue and white striped canvass. I chose the stripes.

The chair has been in rough shape for a while. One of the springs under the seat was broken, and my guests were always shocked at how far they'd fall when they sat in the chair. But I've kept it all this time because I love the shape of it, and because it has special grandma love in it.

On my 30th birthday, one crazy dance move (not by me, although I was nearby when it happened) splashed red wine across my chair, rug, and roman blinds. I'd been meaning to recover the chair for a long time, and now it was a necessity.

After much fabric shopping and tough decision making, I bought a tan colored cordory-ish upholstory and got to work. But first, since Brynn and Jenn helped me pick out fabric, the three of us went to Caribou for coffee and hot cider. Jenn tells me Brynn has been asking when we can go for coffee with Aunt Lola again ever since.


But back to reupholstering. First I unscrewed the arms and legs, and then took care in ripping off the striped fabric, paying close attention to Grandma's methods. She had stapled the fabric underneath, and used hot glue to glue down the folds and seams. I hadn't bought any new batting for the seat, but what was there seemed to be in decent shape still. Attaching the new fabric required a fair amount of trial-and-error cutting, but eventually I got everything on the chair and looking nice. I even reattached the broken spring under the seat.





At that point it occurred to me that while I could attach the legs from the bottom, I had already covered the back access for attaching the arms. Oops! I was angry at myself for a while, because I really liked it with the arms, but I couldn't bear to rip off the fabric and start over. Plus, with all the hot glue, I wouldn't really have been able to use that fabric again, and I was not about to spend another $45. So here's the final product. I'm satisfied.









Just for Fun Addendum:


The day that picture of Brynn and I on the chair when it was striped was taken in March on a weekend when my parents were in town helping me stack the new washer and dryer and paint the stairs. Taking after her Aunt Lola, Brynn did a little craft project of her own. Stickers are fun!