Trash to Treasure

I'm sure you've heard the saying one man's trash is another man's treasure.  Well...I turned someone's trash into a treasure I'll hopefully use for a long time in my new project room.  Since I'm still new to this blogging thing, and because I was incredibly excited to get started on this project I don't have an untouched before picture.  Here are parts of the chair before I got crazy with it.  

It wasn't really trash so to say, I did pay $25 dollars for it from a craigslist ad, but I consider that an awesome deal for such a neat chair.   By the way how do you like that stone patio in the first picture?  That was a crazy DIY project the hubby and I did in the heat of summer 2010.  I LOVE sitting out there with the hubby, some wine (or pumpkin beer), and the pup with his soccer ball.   Anyway, back to the chair.  Isn't that brown fabric beautiful?  I didn't think so either, so it had to go!  The seat of the chair and the back of the chair easily came apart with a screwdriver.  Once I had it taken apart it was time for demolition, which was fairly easy.  The fabric was glued to the frame so that took a little effort, but it all came apart without much of a problem.  Once I got the fabric off and the staples out this is what I was left with.

Looks to me like that old school wood paneling you used to see on walls.  Hubby and I considered cutting new boards because while getting the fabric off the back cushion (the one on the left in the picture above) I slightly split the wood paneling with my strength, but I decided to opt for the easier fix, Duct Tape.  

Sure, it looks a little ghetto, but it worked great, and we didn't have to bother with cutting any plywood.  SOLD!

The next step was to do a light sanding on the frame of the chair.  This was done while enjoying an evening on the patio with the hubby, the doodle, and a nice glass of red wine.  After sanding I made sure to clean the surfaces well, and started spray painting it with some oil rubbed bronze spray paint.  The painting took a couple evenings because with all the curves of this bentwood rocking chair I had to work at a lot of different angles, and I wanted to make sure the paint was completely dry before flipping the chair.  I started spray painting with the more expensive "fancy" can with the "neat" trigger, but it was no good and was spitting out blobs of paint, so I went with the middle of the line, run of the mill spray paint, and it worked wonderfully!  The finish on the rocking chair was in really good shape to begin with, but once I had it painted I got really excited because I liked it so much more already!

With the frame for the  cushions painted it was time to start the reupholstering.  I started with 4 or 5 layers of batting on the side of the cushion you would be sitting/leaning on, and one layer on the back side of the cushions.  The batting was quite simple...trace, cut, repeat several times and then secure in place with a staple gun.  The cushions go onto the frame with a slight lip so I tried to keep the staples close to the edge where the lip in the frame would hide them.  Once stapled I trimmed off the excess batting, and put in place to make sure everything fit O.K. 

John and I put the cushions on the floor and sat on them to make sure it would be sufficiently comfortable before adding the pretty fabric.  They were comfortable so it was onto the next step.  When planning for the fabric I wanted to make sure everything was lined up evenly on the cushions.  To do this I put the empty cushion frames on the rolled out fabric to get an idea of what layout I liked the best.  You know, do I want the birds centered, do I keep the vine things centered, do I try to keep all parts of birds on the cushion without any heads or tails cut off, there were lots of things to consider. 

The birds on the fabric were pretty important to me so I laid it out in such a way that two birds could fit on each cushion as you can see in the picture above.   Once we agreed on the layout, I traced around the frames with a pencil being sure to leave an inch or so of overlap to fold over and staple in place.  I must say cutting the fabric was a little scary because I really didn't want to mess up.  Good news is that I didn't mess up and it worked great!  Once I had the pieces cut I enlisted the help of my hubby to staple it in place.  It was important to have four hands on deck here to make sure the fabric was in the right place and that it was pulled tightly.  We started by putting staples in either side, then top to bottom, and finally filling in the gaps.  I don't have pictures of this process since all hands were on deck to get the task done. 

Above are some pictures of the finished cushions.  You can see how we kept the staples very close to the edge.  We did this so that when the cushion went onto the frame the staples would be well hidden.  To put the cushions onto the frames I simply used some all purpose glue I found in my toolbox my Dad made for me when I went to college.  Side note:  I love that my Dad made me a toolbox, and though I'm grown up now and have a lot more tools, I still use that toolbox all the time!  I think it will always be the best one!  Anyway, a little glue on the lip of the frame and a little elbow grease to get the cushion squished in there was all I needed.  It worked great, and the staples were well hidden.  I was a little worried about the fabric fraying, but with the glue around the lip of the frame I'm sure everything will stay in place just fine.  

The last step was to screw the finished cushions back to the rest of the chair frame.  Before taking that last step though, I stuck all the screws and washer in the ground and spray painted them to match the frame.  Below is a picture of the rusty screws before I painted them to match the rest of the frame.  It worked great to stick them in the ground because I really just needed to paint the heads since the rest of them would be hidden. 

Putting the chair back together was a breeze. All I had to do was line up the screw holes and press the trigger of the drill about 16 times and ta da I have an awesome "new" chair!

As you can see above the hubby and the pup approve!  What do you think?  Was it worth $25  and a few more for the paint and fabric?  So far I LOVE it.  Now I need to spend an evening sitting in there reading a good book!