chair debacle

There once was a living room that needed more seating.  After we purchased our new gray couch, the living room felt empty.  The new couch took up less space and didn't seat as many as our previous two "pushed together" couches.  I had a few chairs that had lived in the living room with our old couch but they just didn't flow anymore.  I knew I wanted two matching or very similar chairs to face the couch.  One day while shopping at a local resale shop I found THE chairs!

Oh yes!  They looked like this AND there were two of them!  They looked pretty bad but I could see the potential.  At $20 each, how could I pass them up?  I could tell they were sturdy, wooden chairs that had been painted and the cushions had been slip covered (in an awful fabric).  I loved their shape and mid-century vibe.  I originally thought I would paint them white but ended up stripping them down to their natural wooden state.  It was quite the process!  I don't have any in-progress photos to share but basically I used a natural citrus stripper (comes in a can and sprays out like foam).  It took several coats to remove the paint, but I was pregnant with Owen and that was the safest (not fastest) method.  After stripping the paint off, I lightly sanded them to make everything nice and even.  I could have sealed them with poly or stained them a different color, but I actually used linseed oil to bring out the richness in the wood and protect them.  I am unsure if I'll want to poly or stain them later on so oiling the wood is a great way to protect it without making any permanent change.

 Next it was time to recover those hideous cushions!  The previous owner of the chairs had made a slipcover and I decided to follow that same pattern.  (I'll save the details of that process for a separate post).  I knew I wanted the fabric that I used to incorporate the teal, lime and gray color scheme I had going on already in the room.  It wasn't until I created a mood board for my living room that I finally decided on the fabric: 

In case you aren't familiar with mood boards, it's basically an idea board with all of the objects you want in a room so that you have a better idea of how everything will look together.  I use polyvore.com to create them and it's free but does take some time to do.  Not everything in this board is what I have in my living room, but I just tried to find things that were close to what I had or what I wanted.  I placed the three pillows on the board as fabric options and immediately knew that the middle option was perfect for chair fabric.  It has all three colors that I wanted and isn't too trendy to put on chairs that I hope to have for the long-haul.  I priced it on a few different sites and ended up ordering about 5 yards from maryjos.com for around $15 per yard.

Problem was, I had never used a sewing machine and I planned on this being a complete DIY project.  Cue, mom to the rescue!  She taught me the basics of how to use her sewing machine one afternoon and my first sewing project was a huge success!  My living room chairs were complete:

 

 

Not bad, right?  Here they are next to each other in the living room:

I love them!  They are comfortable, sturdy, and practical for this room and how we use it.  The slipcovers come off and are washable and the fabric pulls all of the colors together.  The throw pillows on the chairs are from this seller on etsy.  I'll leave you with a before and after of my chair redo:


before

after