chair makeover with Traci!

I am so thrilled that Traci from Beneath My Heart is here today.

If you don’t know her, you will love her and her blog. The best way I can describe Traci is that she is beautiful inside and out and so much fun to be around. Here are a few of my favorite projects of hers:

Master Bedroom:

 Patio Makeover

 

Laundry/Mudroom

 

Thank you, Traci!

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I am so excited to be guest posting here at 320 Sycamore! What an honor! My name is Traci, and I blog at Beneath My Heart.  

 

I just absolutely adore Melissa and her blog, and I am so glad I got to meet her in real life at Blissdom this past January.  

(That’s me in the red, and Melissa in the middle.) A group of us “home bloggers” ate dinner together the first night at Blissdom, and Melissa and I immediately hit it off. I felt like I had know her all my life. She is precious!!! I love blogging! It has blessed my life in so many ways. I feel so grateful to share my home projects with my readers. You’ll find a little bit of everything on my blog, from room makeovers, to furniture re-dos, to easy crafts, and DIY home improvement projects. Today, I thought I would share with you a chair makeover I just completed. When I spotted this chair at Goodwill for $5.50, I knew I had to buy it. I love cane chairs, and this one was in pretty good shape.

 

It just needed a little TLC. So when I got it home, I started taking it apart piece by piece. 

     

It wasn’t pretty, folks! This kind of work is not for the faint of heart. I am so glad that pictures do not smell, or you may be clicking off this post. :) I was hoping to re-use the cushion, but when I saw the condition of it, I knew I had to come up with another plan. Yikes!

If you ever decide to recover a chair, here’s a helpful hint: When taking apart a chair, be sure to take pictures along the way, so you can remember how the material looked on the chair. It helps a ton…believe me!!

  

When my chair was completely “nekkid”, this is what it looked like… (sorry for the blurry picture)

  

I know she’s not much to look at yet, but with a little white paint and some batting to cover the seat, she was already looking a little better.    

  I used my staple gun to attach the batting to the chair. I also used my staple gun to attach the fabric. For the fabric, I used a drop cloth that I already had. (FREE!) If you hang out at my blog for very long, you will discover my love for dropcloths!     

For the back cushion, I decided to use a pillow form I already had. I cut two pieces of drop cloth 23 inches squared.     

Then, I used some brown paint to stencil on my monogram.    

I sewed up the two pieces of material to form my pillow cover and then inserted the pillow form. (I know I am leaving out a lot of steps, but I didn’t want my post to be too long and bore ya!) :) When I was all finished, I had a new chair!    

  I am thrilled with the way it turned out!     

If you look closely, you will see a lot of imperfections…. (so don’t look closely) :)

But overall, I think this chair was definitely worth the time and effort I put into it.     

The drop cloths give it such a crisp, clean look.     

Here is a breakdown of the costs: Chair: $5.50 Thread: $2.00 Batting: $6.00 Drop cloths: Already had Pillow form: Already had Paint: Already had TOTAL: $13.50! Not bad! (Of course, it would have cost more if I had to buy the rest of the materials.)  

If you like the tufted cushion, you could have definitely created one for your chair makeover. That is the fun of it! When you find a little treasure at a thrift store for not a lot of money, you can afford to take a risk and try something new. You can re-do your chair (or treasure) to fit your personality and your style.    

Thank you, Melissa, for letting me share my project with your readers! I hope you all will come see me sometime!  

Blessings!

Traci