Chair cover project FAIL

Do you remember the feeling when you first moved out of home?

The excitement bubbling in your belly, the prospect of boundless freedom?

The thoughts of 'now I can eat/sleep/watch/play whatever I want, whenever I want!'

A little twinge of nerves, a fleeting moment of sadness but plenty of determination to do it and make it on your own.

Do you remember what your apartment/ house looked like? I suspect it was much like my first share house - a mishmash of second hand furniture, hand-me-down kitchenware and some well-used, but well-loved whitegoods. But you made it work, cause it was all yours.

A few years ago, my parents gifted me four leather dining chairs that they no longer had a need for. They were bright (each in a different colour), funky and just what I needed. By the time they reached our current house, they'd seen their fair share of dining rooms and were starting to show their age.

A makeover project was born.

With The Boy away for a week on business, I pulled out a seam ripper and started pulling the chair covers apart. It didn't seem too complex at the time (HAH!) - the covers had long zips down each of side of the chair, which when unzipped, slipped off the chair completely (with just some velcro sticking the fabric under the base of the chair).

I made my way down to Spotlight and picked myself up a serious amount of teal striped (my first mistake) fabric, ready to create some patterns and got the project underway.

.

..

...

By the end of that week, I'd managed to re-cover a grand total of ONE chair (and pulled apart a second). And that's all.

Fast forward 9 months and I've done didly-squat. This is what we've been putting up with since then.

Yep. A blue chair, a red chair, a yellow chair (in a state of disrepair - see below) and a wonky looking striped fabric chair.

Did you notice how I've strategically placed the re-covered chair and the dodgy yellow one on the far-side of the table?

So what went wrong?

Mistake one - choosing a fabric with stripes. It ain't easy lining up all those stripes on different pattern pieces. It's even harder when you've got zips down each side of the chair - it looked straight off the chair, but once zipped up, it began to pull.

Mistake two- still having my L plates on. I like to sew, and am good at the basics, but the furniture upholstery was a little too much for both me and my nan's old sewing machine. I broke a few too many needles and with the heavy fabric and wadding underneath, the machine kept jamming. It got to the point where even a straight line of sewing was more than I could handle.

Mistake three - giving up. I wasn't going to be defeated with that first chair. But once  it was done, the thought of doing it three more times was absolutely exhausting.

So where to from here? Structurally, they are still really great chairs, so I don't want to just replace them, but I can't bring myself to recover them totally.

I needed inspiration.

No, not the dog. (What a poser. She seriously tries to get in every photo I take). The new rug!

Pretty huh! It's from Bunnings (an Australian Hardware store of all places!) I've looked at it everytime I've stopped in there over the past few months and finally decided that I just HAD to have it. I was so keen to get it under the table that I didn't even take a 'before' photo without it.

It even takes the focus off the chairs (somewhat). So now I'm back on the chair cover re-do project. But this time, I'm going in simple. I've decided on some simple chair slips to go right over the top.

No zips, no wadding.

In a plain fabric. Perhaps one of these:



Fabric from Polyvore - light blue & brown tweed

 



Or this sort of colour - in a microfibre finish - chair for sale on ebay

 

Wish me luck! Another project to add to the list.

Amy

The hall table of all hall tables

I love a good blog. Food, baking, DIY, renovation blogs, you name it. On one of my daily blog trawls, I came across The Little Brown House and this headboard to hall table post. Fabulous! I thought, as I had just recently pulled this interesting little feature down from our entry way. 

It was kinda cute, and it did kinda work in the space, but once the red wall was gone, it too, was destined to be obliterated (well, stored under the house). So off I went, scouring local Op. shops and demo yards in search for the perfect, soon-to-be hall table.

Now here's the bit where I tell you I found the perfect piece, hidden away in the back of the junk yard, so perfect it practically jumped out at me as I walked past and what's more it was marked down to 75c or something ridiculous like that.

Sorry to disappoint you people. This ain't Hollywood.

I admit, I gave in. Instead, I went in search for buying a ready made hall table. No cutting / sanding / DIY'ing at all.

And wouldn't you know it, I couldn’t find anything. Nadda. Zip. Nothin' at all.

Bugger.

I decided to have one last try at my local lifeline megastore and came across this little beauty.

It's an off-white/cream colour, with some dents and nicks and some weird shaped stains that had soaked through the paint. You may also spot some little funky orange spots all over too..Although it comes up remarkably well in the photos, let me assure you, it was pretty gross.

Yeah, it's certainly not the bargain basement price I was after, but heck, I was not going to be defeated with this!

My only real issue was size. My entry is only teeny Being without a tape measure and not wanting to look like a dork for asking, I decided to measure it with my wallet. Figuring my wallet was about 8 inches long, I measured 1.5 wallets deep and about 6 wallets long.

Let's break for a little insight about yours truly. I'm a virgo by birth and I certainly live up to the stereotype. Love to plan. Hate surprises. Borderline crazy attention to detail. Colourcode & coordinate everything. Birthday party coming up? Let me take care of it. Need to organise a hen's night / baby shower / your own wedding? Step aside sister, that's my territory. Yet to totally contradict all that, I can be incredibly lazy. Hence the measurement by wallet.

I got it home and then the inevitable. It didn’t fit.

Damn you wallet measurements!

We were off by about half an inch. Dammmnnn.

So I lugged the thing down the stairs decided on my plan of attack.

I decided to cut off not only a bit of width, but also length as well. For this, I recruited my trusty old handsaw. Plus, this time, I measured. With a ruler.  

I then sanded up all the cuts, and gave the whole thing a thorough sanding and a cleanup.

I used White Knights Squirts undercoat to prime it all over, followed by a few coats of White Knights White Satin. (Does anyone else get that desire just to drown the whole thing in one go? Spray paint dribbles are not nice, but damn it tests my patience doing lots of lighter coats!) I managed to finish both cans on this little ditty. It was the first time I used White Knights and I must admit I was kinda disappointed. The coverage just wasn’t there for my liking.  

I then applied some quatrefoil wallpaper printed paper to the back of the shelf. I had planned on stenciling it on, but I was soo not in the mood. I found a quatrefoil image online, recoloured it in Publisher and then printed it out on regular old A4 paper. Don't judge me - I'll get around to stencilling that baby on one day soon...

Et Voila! Look at that baby now! Perfect.

A few hints for first timers -

1. Wack a tape measure or even a measuring tape from your sewing draw into your bag if you're furniture shopping. You could even snitch* a paper one from Ikea next time you're there! (*I don’t condone stealing- they give those babies away for free anyways).

2. Be persistent at your local thrift shops and demo yards. They might not always have what you're looking for, so go in with an open mind and you might come away with something even better than what you first planned.

woo hoo! Check me out on The DIY Show Off, DebbieDoo's Newbie Party and TDC's Before & After Party. Thanks for showing me some newbie love, blog land!!

Coorparoo Demolition Yard

My hoarder receptors went crazy when I heard about this place. If you live in Brisbane, or come through here at all, you must check out the Demolition Yard at Coorparoo.

Located on Cavendish Road, just before Coorparoo train station, this place is a renovator's delight.  If you're after recycled timber, old panes of glass, windows, light fittings, old fireplaces, doors or just about anything you could pull out of an old Queenslander, you'll find it here.

What's better, this place is open 7 days and is open early (7.30am) on the weekends. Do check it out!

Here is a sneak peak of just some of the things that are in stock. There's always new things coming in, so put it on your weekend warrior to do list! (Please forgive the quality of these photos - they were taken on my iPhone)

porthole window with stained glass insert

recycled VJ's, decking, floorboards and more

lattice doors, archways, windows and frames



internal & external doors, windows and mirrors



So if you are looking for something unique for your home rennovation, or if you just feel like having a bit of a scavenger hunt, make sure you check out the Coorparoo Demolition Yard.

Cheers,

Miss PP