Chair Makeover

So I stumbled upon this beauty the other day at a local thrift store. What, beauty wouldn't be your choice word for it? Well, I thought this poor little chair had a little life left in it - just needed an uplift. So I bought it for $14!





So I'm pulling out of the parking lot, wondering what I'm going to do about a new cushion, when I see across the street a fabric store! One I didn't know our city even had! So I obviously went in & went straight to the clearance bin, and found some great blue-gray home decor fabric! 2 yards for $5! It was totally meant to be.

I brought the sad, tired chair home & sanded & spray painted it a pretty off white. Then I set out to remake the seat cushions. The foam inside the original cushions were surprisingly still foam-y, so I sprayed them with bleach to kill any germs that might have snuck through that fabulous mustard faux leather (I don't think the foam ever saw the light of day, but just in case?) and decided I would reuse them. Then I took apart the old cushion covers to make a pattern for my new covers. I then cut out the pieces to match.

I used off white piping to accent the seams. Below are a couple pictures of how I did it. It was pretty easy, I just sewed the piping inside of the seam, with the round piping part facing in towards the center of the cushion. You can also see that instead of a zipper, I used an overlap side. I am not brave enough to attempt zippers, yet.

The corners were a little tricky, but just sew slow and make sure you gather equally to make a neat corner.

And there! You're done with a pretty blue gray chair for only $19!

Perfect for our rental, where I don't want to spend a lot of $ furnishing a temporary space!