Ugly chair turned...less ugly

We moved. That's kind of old news now, but I thought I'd give you a little background on why I'm redoing a random chair. We knew ahead of time this would be a temporary move (6ish months or less) so we only brought what we could fit in our cars. We planned on renting a furnished apartment, even had one picked out.

Unfortunately that place fell through and we couldn't find anything furnished for such a short time. So we moved into a different apartment and had absolutely no furniture! Thanks to cheap stuff at Walmart, thrift stores, and some very kind people we now have enough furniture for the time we'll be here. I picked up a couple office chairs for free on base (which is great because I'm pretty sure sitting in a camp chair to work for 8 hours was going to get old quickly).

I also grabbed a duvet cover for free and planned on using it on the futon or something once we were reunited with our furniture. But I really wanted to cover the chair and I really didn't want to use the fabric I brought with me (yes, I brought fabric but mostly just what I was planning to use for christmas presents). So the duvet was elected to be the new chair cover. I'll quickly run through the steps...

Cut a piece big enough to cover the bottom and have plenty to overlap on the bottom. Don't bother ironing because it will be stretched out anyway and getting the iron out seems like wayyy too much trouble. Staple once on each side just to hold the fabric in the right spot while you flip the chair over.

I didn't want to take the chair apart, there were way too many things undone in the apartment for me to create another undone thing. So I leaned it precariously against the wall as I worked. Get your stapler ready for the next part!

Pull the fabric tight and staple like there's no tomorrow. I just used a regular old stapler, but a staple gun might be more effective because I did have some staples that didn't take the first time.

After you've stapled the whole thing, trim the excess. Then flip your chair over and marvel at the fact that your bang up job looks somewhat presentable.

My chair was upholstered even on the back of the seat, so I could use the "staple haphazardly" method for the seat back.

I pinned two pieces of fabric together over the chair, right sides together. (Because I seem to vaguely remember someone using this method to reupholster a couch so it seemed like the professional way to go...at least compared to stapling fabric all over the place.)

If your chair tapers in toward the bottom like mine did, you shouldn't pin all the way down. Unless you don't want to put it on after you sew it. I only pinned about halfway down so it wouldn't be so small at the opening that it wouldn't fit over the top. Sew around the edge and turn it right sides out then slip it on.

Now how to sew up the bottom half of the seat cover...that's a good question. My method involved some hand stitching and a safety pin on one side. I plan on coming up with a more permanent solution eventually, but for now I'm good with the finished product. (If I was doing this over again I would hem the bottom edge of the seat cover so I didn't have to worry about sewing it close.d)

Is it perfect? No. Is it exactly what I need for the next several months? And is it way more pleasant to look at than a stained brownish/pinkish chair? Yes and yes!

So what could you not move without? Tonight I was wishing I had my George Foreman grill that didn't make the cut (and wishing I'd remembered to pack the salt and pepper...guess I'm headed to the grocery store again!).

Patio Chair Redo...or Redon't

In case you think you might be the only person that has DIY disasters, this post will reassure you that everyone gets in way over their head sometimes...

After starting this project I quickly discovered I really didn't know what I was doing. I've had these two patio chairs for probably four years and they were beginning to show their age.

The fabric along the seams of the seat was starting to separate.

For fabric that was literally thread bare, it was ridiculously hard to get off. As I was trying to get the fabric off in one piece (so I could copy the size) I also found those chairs were reeeally good at hiding dirt (and one spider, eek!).

I won't dive into all the dimensions and details since the chances of somebody having the exact same chairs is kind of slim (that and I really have no idea what I'm doing). I cut the new fabric (that my sis got me for my bday!) based on the size of the fabric I took off of the chair. Does anyone else's living room look like this during a project?

This is a preview of what I was hoping for...thanks to some strategically placed chip clips. : )

Things were going pretty well, I got the back of the chair connected and even managed to find 2 of the screws that disappeared somewhere along the way.

Unfortunately that's the end of the good luck on this project. I couldn't get the cross bars off of the bottom (who uses a totally round screw anyway? It's absolutely impossible to remove) so my plan to sew first and then slide the seat fabric on went down the drain.

So for the moment this is the chair.

Not awesome. I'm just glad I didn't take both chairs apart, so one person can still sit on the balcony! I'm not exactly sure where to go from here. I'd really like to have 2 chairs again. I thought about trying to fashion some kind of hard platform for the seat and then make a cushion out of the fabric...or something. Any ideas?

Good Saturday!

I normally don't give you a run down of every little thing that goes on, but today I really scored so I wanted to share. First, I woke up and my motivation for running was zero. Thankfully I was running with someone so I couldn't bail. We did 6 miles and almost matched our race pace. Then Hubs and I went to breakfast with our usual crew and tried some new pancake flavors! (we order the same thing pretty much every time so this was branching out for us : ) Raisin walnut (which was surprisingly good) and raspberry white chocolate (which is basically like a dessert pancake...I may have a new favorite).

Don't worry, I'm getting to the really good part. Hubs had a softball scrimmage so I went looking for a new shoe holder. Trust me, it was a necessary purchase. Here was my sorry excuse for a shoe holder (that didn't even warrant a picture with my camera, hence the poor phone quality pic):

That thing was fairly functional at one point, but clearly it was not made to last. That picture makes it look like I have way too many shoes, but really they all just kept falling out so I had a pile of shoes building on the floor. I wasn't terribly optimistic about finding a good shoe holder because, lets face it, they're kind of hard to find. This is probably my second or third.

But thanks to the good people at Real Simple, I found a winner (and no, Real Simple did not sponsor this post I just reeeally like this product). Seriously, I love the new shoe holder.

It has 18 shoe pockets (I easily fit any pair I had in a pocket), 2 boot pockets and 8 elastic-y pockets on the side for flats or flip flops! I stuck a Real Simple magazine (kind of fitting since the organizer is from Real Simple, but really that's the only magazine I subscribe to...did you hear that Real Simple? Yeah, I'll be waiting for a call about your sponsorship) in each of my boots and now they're standing up nicely instead of being crushed under the shoe pile.

Doesn't the whole area look way better? (Don't focus on anything but the shoe organizer, I know the closet could use some work.) You might have noticed there's a pair of shoes still out. Let me assure you, they could've fit. They're my "need to do something dirty/outside" shoes, and were found too dirty unworthy for my brand spankin' new awesome shoe holder.

Sorry, enough with the shoe holder, I know. But really, if you need one head to Bed Bath and Beyond and pick one up, it was only $20, even less with the 20% off coupon. Onto the real deal of the day! On my way to BBB I saw a sign for a yard sale, but didn't stop. The sign was still up on the way back and now had a 1/2 price piece of paper taped to it. So I couldn't pass that up, and it turned out to be literally around the corner from our house.

I pulled up and what did I spot right away? A whole table full of fabric! Since everything was half price now it was $1 per yard. Can't beat that! It's a good thing I had no cash on me : ) I did have $2.50 in change, and I used it!

Over 2 1/2 yards of fabric for $2.50. Yay! And it doesn't smell funny or look old (that can be a serious problem at yard sales). It seems like pretty good quality and I could tell from her selection of books she quilts a lot.

I briefly thought about going with one color scheme (there were lots of reds and pinks that would've gone together), but since I never have anything planned ahead of time I just took what appealed to me the most. Hopefully I can think of something fun and summery to do with the green seersucker fabric! So that's my Saturday (or at least the first 2/3 of it)! Off to a pretty good start for the weekend : ) What's happening with you this weekend?

Quick Tip

I just wanted to share a little something I found out about this week. Beverly's is the only craft store in my area (comparable to Michael's or Joann's I think). Ok, after typing Michael's I remembered we do have one of those, but they don't sell fabric. Anyway I went to their website the other day to look for something and saw "Deal of the Day."

What's Deal of the Day? Oh, just a little thing where they sell certain fabrics for only $2.97 per yard. They feature 3 fabrics a day, and the sale is only good for 24 hours (hence the day part of the title). $2.97!?! And they feature some really cute prints. You still have to pay for shipping, which makes it a little more expensive, but still below what a normal sale price would be.

The deal has been on their main website whenever I look. Here's a link to their blog as well, which points out the deal of the day. As excited as I am about sharing this news, I cannot be held responsible for the massive amounts of fabric you may purchase because of this sale ; )

In other news, I've been working on a clutch for a charity auction and I'll be excited to share it next week (or whenever I finish, but hopefully next week). The project requires me tackle a few things I've never done before and so far so good! Oh, and I didn't have a pattern so I had to kind of make one up...yeah, that was a lot of work (what was I thinking???). Hope everybody is having a great weekend!