From Drab To Fab


In the latter half of last year, I picked up these green vinyl tub chairs on Trademe quite cheaply with the intention of recovering them and putting them into my kids room for reading chairs.  When I collected them I realised that actually they were too large to be bedroom chairs but I could fit on of them perfectly into my family room as an occasional chair.  Lovely aren't they?  This is the better of the two of them.  The one I chose to recover had a large hole in the side of the chair.  Anyho, it sat in my garage all through Christmas and hubby cursed it every time he put his car away until one day in the middle of January I got the nerve to make a start.  The way I figured it, the chair was a mess, I couldn't really make it much worse.  We began pulling it apart.  I say we because it quickly became aparent that I would never be able to pull all of the staples in this thing, and there were a lot, on my own, so my husband came to my rescue and pulled out most of them.  He then sanded the legs and restained and polyurethaned them.

Once I had the chair apart came the really scary part.  I had bought some gorgeous upholstery fabric, also on Trademe, last year and while it was considerably cheaper than retail, it was still very expensive so I didn't want to stuff it up.  I used all of the pieces I had removed as templates and cut new pieces in my new and gorgeous fabric.  It was a time consuming exercise because the staple gun we had gave my husband blisters and I didn't have the strength to operate it at all.  Once we were halfway through, I began to think there must be an easier way and with the help of Google found out that I could buy an electric staple gun from Bunnings quite cheap.  The following day I was at Bunnings shortly after opening and had my electric staple gun in my hot little hand.  I can't believe I haven't owned one of these before.  They are fantastic.  Anyho, the chair has now been completed and takes pride of place as a bedroom chair but in my bedroom.  Now I have my sights set on the other chair because this chair just looks fantastic!

Comments

  1. What a transformation. I hear you about the stapling. I once covered a couch using a hand staple thingy and a hammer and was put off upholstery for ever.

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  2. I'm in awe! Firstly, that you could find two such lovely shaped chairs, and secondly that you had the guts to reupholster them. I love the fabric you chose - and your handwork is fab!

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  3. One thing with auction sites, you really don't know what you have until you collect them so I wasn't aware that speciman two had a hole in the side. This actually made my decision to give it a go easy. Turns out, it really isn't as complicated as I first thought and I am glad I got up the courage to have a go.

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  4. These are a beautiful shape; I can see why they caught your eye in the first place.

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