My One Dollar Chair - Finished!

So we used to have this most awesome auction place in Mt. Pleasant.  Last year I got this chair for one dollar!  Wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it.  I bid one dollar on it just so I could watch it and see how high it got.  I ended up being the only one that bid on it.  So, yeay for me, I got a chair for one dollar.  One, very sad, very dirty, very poorly repaired, chair for one dollar.

I decided this chair might make a good desk chair, so I headed to JoAnn's to check out fabric and found this upholstery fabric I loved and then waited for a sale and a coupon.  Then this poor project has been sitting on the list.  I took the "before" picture last fall after this project had already been waiting for months.  Can you tell this difference between our poor fall grass and our summer grass.  Anyway, we have had a very rainy couple of weeks.  Not so great for our pioneering this month, but great for catching up some projects.  Saturday, after service and a rain shower, I got busy tackling this little project.

Here's what it took:



This was someones idea of a repair.  It held well just didn't follow through with the cleanup.



So I went to town with my little dremel and got it all off. Then I sanded the whole thing down and spray painted it smoke gray in gloss.



Took that old nasty fabric off.




Can you tell how many times this poor chair has been recovered.

 

Now the fun part!  I grabbed some extra batting too.  The original cushion was, well, not very cushy.

Staple on the batting and cut off excess.



Then staple on the fabric.  I tucked the fabric all the way over the lip also to hide all those previous staple and nail holes.



But what to do with all those ugly staples?



Voila!  My handy dandy HeatN'Bond left over from my bathroom curtains.  And some lovely ribbon.



Ta Da!  No more ugly staples.  Everyone told me I was ridiculous because this is under the chair, but I say the entire chair deserves to be pretty! :o)



And there she is all finished.  Now if the rest of the office/craft area could be done so quickly and easily!



Sunday Boredom

So it is a Sunday evening and it was such a busy day and now everyone is off in their different directions and I am bored.  Bored to tears.  Bored and anxious because I have all these projects floating around in my brain from all the "stuff" I have acquired in the last week either through gifts or auctions or yard sales.

So to help deflect some of that I thought I would share my $5 bookcase with y'all.

Here she is before:

I found her at a yard sale over in Barryton.  I would have passed her by because I thought she was just there holding up knick-knacks for sale.  Then I noticed some masking tape across the top that said $5.  I thought maybe it was a mistake.  Then I almost talked myself out of it.  What if it is a mistake and she says $20.  Do I still want it?  Even if it is $5 where would I put it?  Then I started to imagine her all fixed up with cookbooks and canned goods on her shelves.  So I finally asked if it was a mistake.  Nope.  Sweet!  Quick call to Cameron to come pick her up and we were on our way again.

The bottom edges were a little rough and one side the bottom was cracked.  No big deal.  I got out the good ol' wood glue, some nails, and a clamp.  Then I borrowed more of the hubby's tools, this time I reached into the power tools.  I got to work sanding down all the surfaces to get off the shiny varnish.

Thankfully the hubby came home after all of this was completed.  I love him to death and love that he always wants to help me with these projects but usually what happens is he completely takes over and then I don't get to enjoy that part of the refinishing.  Plus I tend to be a little more picky about things than he is.  So this way we avoided the "compromising" that I usually do and then the finding that "compromise" everytime I look at a piece when it is finished.  And when he finally did come home and looked over what I had done, he gave it his nod of approval and said he was impressed.  How's that for a day's work?

Then I rummaged around in all the paint we have around this place and found a white that was not too gleaming white and not to yellowy-white.  Z. is always dying to help me paint so I let him tackle the back while I worked on the front.  He lasted for about 15 minutes before he was "so exhausted" and had to go inside.  Silly boy.

I put on three or four coats of paint.  My plan was to distress it and then apply a final clear coat.  I got started on the distressing but decided it could wait awhile.  I was too impatient to have it in the kitchen.

So there she is with her many layers of paint.  Much, much prettier now.

And here she is in the kitchen with a tiny bit of distressing.  When I get a little more ambitious I will empty her off and get to work on that distressing.  But for now, she looks pretty happy just the way she is.