chair project

Long ago, when I was in high school I bought a chair at a garage sale and it moved into my dad's studio for "someday" when I was a grown-up. We painted it and my mom recovered the cushions and when I got married I took it with me (my dad, who had complained when it originally moved into his studio wanted to know what I was doing with "his chair" when I moved it out!). 

Several years ago I got tired of the covers my mom made (purple) so I recovered them and off we went, but it was in need of a true knock down make-ever and I finally got around to it. Here, buried under piles, is the before - old paint job, dirty cushions etc. 

The old cushions were DISGUSTING and disintegrating - feast your eyes - and I was not wanting to spent $100 on new foam. Luckilly foam was on super sale on black Friday and I had a coupon and ended up with a great deal.

Inside of cushions - eek!

Cutting the foam was a JOKE! I finally took it back to JoAnns and they very kindly cut it for me with their electric knife.

Isaac was a super sanding helper and we stripped off several layers of old paint and then I sprayed on
probably 5 layers of paint and an acrylic coat.

I covered the cushions with a twill under-layer and then the chair sat for a good month because outer slip covers intimidate me and I knew I would need uninterrupted thinking/sewing time to do them properlly - cue laugh track. I was super lucky to find some heavy twill drapes at the thrift store in a pattern I love for $10 a panel (yards and yards of fabric) and a few weeks ago got up the guts to make the welt cording.

Saturday I FINALLY bit the bullet and covered one cushion, carefully following this tutorial and finished the second one yesterday. Ryan calls it our Guggenheim chair. I think it is way fun!