I just learned to upholster.

I just came back from visiting my parents in their new home in south Texas.  It was a really fun trip and I picked up a new skill while I was there.  About 10 years ago my parents bought a new couch and matching chair.  The couch was made of a casual blue cotton and faded quickly in the California sun (my parents move a lot) so my mom bought a slip cover while they were living in Tennessee.  The chair however remained uncovered except for my moms very creative attempt at converting it to cowhide chair.

Moo chair

Pretty cool huh?  Mom is great.  She sewed it on there with raffia.  I don't know exactly how to describe her style but its something like 'contemporary rustic.'  Is that an oxymoron?  I think you can see from the picture that the chair has some stains and is quite faded and mom had a few yards of some really cool fabric so I decided to try to cover it.  I made some pattern pieces out of an old sheet but I could not win my game of fabric Tetris to try to get my pattern pieces to fit on the 3 yards of cool fabric.  The solution was to buy a complimentary fabric to make parts of the chair.  Here is the result:




Front o chair



Oh and there was an ottoman too.

Dining Room Chairs

I have a bit of a fondness for Auctions, I find that most people consider my treasures trash and this leads to great deals for me.  We went to our first estate auction a couple of years ago with The Best Neighbors in the World and picked up this table and chairs for a cool $70.

It was love at first sight.

I loved this set from the first time I saw it but bidding on stuff is so exciting it makes you love stuff even more.  There is a sticker on the bottom of the chairs that says 'Made in Italy' but that is all I know about this set.  I would love to get some history (if it has any).
So the sad part of the story is this part of the chairs.

tear.

The seat bottoms are damaged or gone on several of the chairs.  Sadly, I've spent the past few years bringing in alternative chairs when people want to eat food at my house but the time has come for a change.
I looked into having them re caned or trying to do it myself but this is cost prohibitive. . .So here is my solution.

Tada! 

Bryant cut me some circles out of whatever that composite stuff is in the picture.  I then cut larger circles out of an old mattress pad, batting and a beautiful black linen.

The guts.

  I'm happy with our solution.  I would post a whole table pic but the office is under construction and said table is covered in tools/dust.

Upholstered Headboard

Headboard Frame by Bryant

Drum roll please (drum rolling in your head) Presenting. . .My first Project!  It may not look like much now but by tonight it will be an upholsered headboard.
   
To build the frame Bryant cut down a peice of particle board to 80"x44", it is going to be big but our room is big and it needs big furniture.  He made the frame using some 1x2's. Bryant always makes things that are super sturdy, check that thing out!

I got this awesome print fabric from Sirs, it was remnant fabric so I got two peices that are about 1yard and 1/3 each and matched the print when I sewed it together. I was pretty excited because I had never tried to match a print before.  I think it turned out pretty good and the tufting should help to conceal the seam.
 
A few months ago our lovely neighbors gave me their granmothers button collection so I will be digging through it for the right buttons for tufting.  I don't want to do fabric covered, instead I am going to go with a contrasting color. . .probably black since the print is tan with french writing on it.  More Later!