2009 May 10 | Beneath My Heart

furniture makeover

I have finally completed my Goodwill chairs! I am so very excited about this makeover! It is exactly what I envisioned.

For some background information…

My husband and I are creating a guest house above our garage. (To see our progess so far, click here and here.) We are almost finished, but it needs furniture. We are on a very tight budget, so I have been frequently visiting Goodwill hoping to find something I could re-do or restore.

I came upon two chairs a while back that I instantly fell in love with. I didn’t like the color, but they had great “bones”. I loved the design on the back, I loved the wood they were made of, and they were extremely sturdy and comfortable. Best of all, I got them both for $30.00!

Here’s the before.

At first, I was going to paint the material. Yes, I said paint! I learned about it from a post at One Woman’s Cottage Life. But then I realized you wouldn’t see the cool design on the back of the chair if I left it covered with the material. So I decided to remove the material on the back.

I also removed the seat by simply unscrewing it on the bottom. I wanted to cover the seat with new material.

Then I had the fun task of removing one thousand staples! I’m serious, it seemed like a thousand! So I enlisted some help…

That’s my oldest son, Jonathan. He’s almost 10, and he is a work horse. He loves helping me and his dad with all of our projects. Luke and Adam also helped, but I forgot to snap a pic.

The next day, I had blisters on the palms of my hands from all the staples we removed. No pain, no gain, right?

Then I spray painted the chairs black, and they started looking much better.

That’s Jonathan’s feet in the background. He was helping me spray paint the wicker plant stand. (Don’t know where I’m going to use that yet!)

Then I bought some off white material to cover the seats.

I love using a staple gun. Covering a seat is so easy. Just be sure to pull the material real taunt before you staple. And if you mess up, you can easily pull the staple out and start over. (I know that from lots of experience!)

I just folded the corners over like so, nothing fancy.

Then I just re-attached the seats with a screwdriver, and I was finished!

What-a-ya think? I pulled the pillow off my bed to show you what it would look like with a pillow on it. I haven’t found the pillows I want just yet. I may buy them, or find some material I like and make them. I also thought a monogrammed pillow would look good.