While I consider myself a rather competent DIY'er, one thing I've never done is reupholster furniture. Frankly because it scares the bejeezus out of me. Hemming curtains, spray painting faucets...those all seem like a cake walk compared to tackling a piece of furniture that someone actually has to use and look at and if you do it wrong, then you're left with a monstrosity that looks like I let my toddler go to town on it.
About 3 years ago when the hubby and I were living the childless life in a sweet townhouse near downtown Denver, one of our neighbors was moving and put this gem out on his front step with a "Free" sign on it. We nabbed it a little too quickly; I'm sure we looked like we were homeless the way we descended on this faded chair like vultures. Yes, this chair is faded and worn but what you can't see from the first photo is that this chair is old. And old means 'well made'! Something you just don't get from most furniture today. Oh yeah, and it's super comfy and deep. So we got it home and realized it was a little too faded and worn for my liking and so I decided that it would be reupholstered. Minor problem...I had no idea how to even start doing such a project. Luckily my mom did and she helped me remove all the old fabric, staples and nails. In reality, I sat there in my 5 months pregnant glory while she did all the removing. And boy did it take a long time. Once the removing process started, I realized just how seriously well made this chair was. And also if a tornado were to rip through the house, it would probably still be in one piece. It and all of its 15 million nails and staples.
So when you're removing fabric, make sure you write on each piece of where it came from and which direction is up. So so helpful when I finally got around the recovering the darn thing 2 years after this.
Okay, so let's fast forward 2 years from the removal process. I had spent hours (no joke) picking out a fabric that I wanted for the chair. This chair has been sitting in Selah's room with a sheet over it's half dissected carcass and not only did it have to look good in her room, but I wanted it to be in a fabric that would be universal when it came time to changing her room over to a big girl room because I didn't plan on doing this more than once! Since her room is already gray and yellow, I went with this design that I thought would go well with another color scheme in the future since gray is pretty neutral.
My little helper...inspecting my carefully laid out pattern.
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