Prest-O Change-O Grey to Gold

In my house, procrastination knows no bounds! Shortly after New Years, I found a dining set on Kijiji and posted about it here on January 31st. At the very end of that post, I wrote the following:

"The chairs will need to be recovered in a new fabric,

and I'm obsessed with the idea of using a deep yellow velvet.

Can you picture it?" 

Fast Slow forward to March 1st, when I purchased 3 yards of fabric for this little project (keeping receipts helps to keep track of spending and project timelines), spending a lavish $36.36. Then life happened, and I tucked that bolt of fabric into a corner for more than 7 months before rolling it out in preparation for cutting. I removed the existing covers from the best fitting seat and chair back to use as pattern pieces to cut the new fabric.

There was some sewing and some stapling involved in this project, but I won't go into too many details, it's fairly straight forward. The trickiest part was avoiding wrinkles in the fabric while stapling and I didn't do a great job of that, but oh well. Despite the telltale DIY signs, I'm happy with the fresh new look:

I love the contrast of golden yellow against navy blue. What do you think?

Elusive Chair Now Safe at Home

It has been one year since I first posted about my quest to find an affordable occasional chair for use as additional living room seating and as head chair at the dining table. As of today, the quest is finally complete, and Project "Elusive Chair" has been put to bed.

First Post:
"Projects 2009", January 18, 2009

Second Post:
"Coming Up Next", March 12, 2009

Third Post:
"Unfinished Business", December 29, 2009

Final Post:
This is it!!!

Before

After

Fabric Detail

Dark Stain & Double Piping Finish

Here are the step by step details of the project:

• Shop numerous home decor retailers for an occasional chair, but discover price tags of approximately $795.00 (January/February 2009).

• Discover similar style chair on Craigslist for $50.00. Chair will require reupholstering, but I buy it anyway (March 2009).

• Chair sits in living room of my condo for more than ten months while I contemplate taking an upholstery class and recovering it myself.
  

• Decide against treating this as a DIY project, and Google Toronto Upholstery (December 30, 2009).

• Call World Upholstery, get an in-home quote of $200.00 for seat rebuild, reupholstering & refinishing (January 2, 2010).
  

• Find suitable fabric at Designer Fabric Outlet for $26.99/yd (110" wide). Purchase 1 1/2 yards (January 2, 2010).

• Drop off chair & fabric at World Upholstery (January 2, 2010).

• Pick up completed chair at World Upholstery (January 18, 2010).

Cost breakdown:
Chair $50.00
Fabric: $45.75
Labour: $200.00
Total Cost: $295.75

What's the best part? It's done and I love it!!!

Working On It

Another day, another project that needs to be finished. This time it's Project Recovery, which is a work in progress. Hey, give me some credit, at least I've started working on this one!!

Goal #3
Complete Project Recovery

This set of 5 antique shield back chairs will be my new dining chairs as soon as I sand them, paint them and recover them in a pretty fabric. Looking forward to the final results!!

Unfinished Business

Apparently I suffer from procrastination...who knew? I didn't discover it myself until I started on my 2010 goal setting expedition. When I took a look at last year's projects I realized that of the four projects discussed here on January 18th, 2009, only two have been crossed off the "to-do" list. That's a lousy percent complete!!!

Goal #2
Complete Project Elusive Chair

Reupholster this chair...

...in this Kravet fabric
(or something similar)...

...to look just like these beauties.

Getting it done in 2010!!!