Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Frugal Chair Rehab

My grandma bought these chairs at an antiques auction when I was a little kid. For years they occupied a space in the lingerie department of her little dress shop. When she retired from the clothing business they were passed on to my mother, who eventually passed them on to me. I love them. I love the carved wood detail and the beautiful clawfoot table that accompanies them, so for over a year now I have kept them out in plain view in spite of the fact that the colour of the fabric fights with everything else in my living room. No more. $15 of Amy Butler Royal Garden Fabric has transformed them into this.

I was a little nervous about this project because I wanted the updated chairs to stay true to their Victorian roots. I think we accomplished that. Now we have the perfect little table and chairs for playing chess or sipping coffee in the morning sunshine.

4 comments:

  1. Cute! Do the panels come off? I'm thinking of doing something similar with our dining room chairs, since a lot of the fabric has become stained over the years... Was it easy to do?

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  2. The panels and the seat were both stapled down, so it was just a matter of pulling out the staples, making a pattern from the old pieces and stapling the new cloth to the seat with a staple gun. We did our dining room chairs that way too. It's really not as hard as it looks. The trick is to keep the fabric pulled tightly, so it helps to have two peaople doing the work.

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  3. Thanks! That is so good to know. I'm on the look-out for some great fabric to cover the dining room chairs and I hope they turn out as lovely as yours!

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