Thrift Find!

I really love to thrift but just like regular shopping, its a hit or miss. Well, about a month or so ago, I lucked up on some GREAT finds for a steal!

Check out this chair I got for $15! I plan to paint it white and reupholster it in a pretty fabric. Stay tuned for that!

 And check out this sofa I scored for only $35!!! The bones are soo great on this! Cant wait to reupholster this one too! I just have to figure out what fabric I want to use!

New Thrift Store Find - $20

Check out this beauty I got from thrift store for $20! The bones on this chair are fabulous! Just imagine it in a beautiful fabric! Now Im on the hunt for some nice fabric! Stay tuned! :)

Thrift Store Chair Redo- Finally FINISHED!

So you guys remember this old ugly chair I got from the thrift store right?

BEFORE

This chair was the first of this style I have ever revamped....so I was definitely up for the challenge! Not only did it have an upholstered front and back, the cushions were tufted too.  It was quite fun taking it all apart and redoing it. I have all intentions of doing a tutorial on how I did this revamp but I will have to post that later because trying to figure out how to explain everything in writing takes a long time...lol.  So check out how it all came together!

Had to strip it all down. Then I sanded it really well and spray painted it silver. This chair has been thru it in its former life....so I couldn't sand all the knicks out of it...and the paint actually highlighted all the imperfections even more...but I guess it gives it a little character..lol 

AFTER

Back view of chair

This one took me awhile to complete but I'm quite proud of my work since this was my first time attempted this style! This beauty will be in my office. Next project is to make a matching side table! Stay tuned for that and the tutorial! :) 

Ottoman REVAMPS! Before & After

This past weekend I revamped two thrift store ottomans and worked on my latest chair redo. Check out how they came out!

OTTOMAN #1

BEFORE - Ugly ottoman 

AFTER - This beauty will be used in one of my client's daughters' room

OTTOMAN #2

BEFORE

AFTER - I messed up a little on the sewing on this one but its barely noticeable 

I'm still working on the chair... will post that this week so stay tuned! Its turning out to be one of my fav revamps yet! :)

Latest Thrift Store Find & my DREAM Furniture!

I came up on a great chair today at my fav thrift store for $15. This will be the first chair of this style I will be doing so this should be interesting! Stay tuned for how I revamp it!


And this past weekend, while visiting my friends in MD, we stopped by this great furniture auction store.  I was stopped in my tracks when I saw these pieces of furniture! I would LOVE LOVE LOVE these in my office .....with a different fabric though. Check them out! HOT!! Bidding starts at $400 for the chair and a lil less for the one seater! This is definitely the type of furniture I dream about and love! :)

Thrift Store Find - $15

So check out this thrift store find I came across today...its a round ottoman I got for $15....judging from the tag on the bottom, it was originally purchased at Marshalls and it appears only lightly used.  I think I may be using it in a room I'm working on for one of my clients.  Stay tuned to see how it turns out once I recover it! :)

Thrift Store Chair Redo

You guys remember my last thrift store chair? Well if you didn't notice in my office pics, I gave it a makeover.  The only thing is that Im not a fan of the fabric I covered it with. I've been looking for something I really like but for now, this striped fabric will have to do.

So here is the chair before: 

 

And here is the chair AFTER: 

The fabric I used for now doesn't "do it" for me but it'll work for now until I find something better!

My Thrift Store Find for $3.98

So the other day while driving past my fav thrift store, I noticed a chair sitting outside.  Now I had no intention on going to the store that day but they sit alot of the furniture on sidewalk ...prob to bring people in ...and the detail on this chair back caught my eye. I instantly envisioned a color to paint it! It was $5 and the whole store was 25% off that day! So I got this beauty for $3.98...cant beat that with a bat! Stay tuned to see how I re-do this one!

Before and After: Thrift Store Chair! (And TUTORIAL)

So Im finally finished my thrift store chair re-do and I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome! It went from this old ugly chair BEFORE:

 

To this fabulous chair AFTER: 

Here is an up close view of the back of the chair.  I used silver nailhead trim around the edges to give it a more polished and funky look.  Initially I was planning on doing double welt cording, but decided I would like this look better and I'm glad I went with it.

So lets see how much this project cost me: 

Thrift Store Chair       $7.50

Spray Paint (2 cans)   $10

Fabric (1/2 yd)          $22.50

Nailhead Trim (the kit was $30--including shipping-- but I only used about $2.00 worth of it and still have alot of it left to use on other projects)

Batting ($8.00 for a bag of it but just like the Nailhead trim, I only used a little and still have alot left over for other projects so lets just say I used about $2.00 worth of it for this chair)

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All together this chair cost me about $44 to paint and reupholster!  Not bad at all especially when something like this could easily run anywhere from $129 to $199 at Home Goods and even more at a high end furniture store!!

I still have to do the twin of this chair.... check them out side by side. Big difference right?

So how did I do this? Well here is my tutorial on it:
First thing you want to do is gather all your supplies: 
Chair 
Fabric
Spray Paint- I recommend Rust-Oleum Lacquer from Home Depot
Sanding paper (optional)
Staple Gun
Spray glue 
Rubber Mallet
Batting - Here is a picture of the batting I used but you can use any kind:

Purchased at Joanns

Nailhead Trim kit or some type of trim - Here is a picture of how the kit looks..it comes with the nails and trim:

Purchased online www.diyupholsterysupply.com

Next thing you want to do is remove your seat from the chair frame.  This is easy... just flip chair over and use screw driver to unscrew nails that are holding seat cushion in place.  So now your chair should look like this:

After this, you can sand down your chair a little. I didn't do this but it is good to do because it will help remove any polyurethane and dirt on chair which will help the spray paint stick better.  I plan to do a little sanding on the other chair.  

Now its time to paint! Take your chair to a well ventilated area (preferably outside) and get to painting! Your chair may need a couple of coats.  My chair used 2 cans of spray paint.

 
Now pull out your chair cushion.  If its in bad shape, you may need to add some extra batting to your cushion.  My cushion was in good condition so I was able to get away without adding anything extra.  Get your fabric and cut a piece big enough to cover the cushion. Flip fabric on opposite side and then place cushion face down. Get your staple gun out and start stapling fabric around your cushion tightly.

Once you are done, you can attach your cushion back on the chair frame (once paint has thoroughly dried).  It should look like this:

If you are happy with the outcome of your chair at this point, you are done!! BUT if not, this is where it gets a little tricky.  If you decide, as I did, that you also want to cover the back of the chair as well, this next part isn't really hard but just not quite as easy as what we just went over.  I'm sure there are tons of different ways to do this but this is how I did it.  

Measure out a piece of fabric thats big enough to cover the back of your chair. Now this part may be a little hard for me to explain so bare with me. Basically I just used some spray glue and sprayed the center of the fabric and stuck it to the back of chair. Then I used a needle and thread to sew the fabric at the top in place a little.  

Next I got my batting out and cut a piece out and repeated the spray glue step. I sprayed some glue in the center and stuck it on the back of chair under the fabric I just sewed to the chair at the top:

  Then I took scissors and cut around it to fit the area i was covering like this: 

I used a little more spray glue and stuck the fabric to the batting. Then I got my nailhead trim set out and started putting that on like this:

 

This trim is really cool because every 5th stud, there is a hole and thats where you put the individual nailhead. If you look closely at the pic above, you can see the hole where the nailhead goes.  

Half way done with the nailhead trim...see below:

Finally, ALL DONE! Hope my tutorial helps someone out a bit!

Beginning Stages of Chair Re-do

Yesterday, I ventured to the city (NY) to pick up a few items and I ran across some BEAUTIFUL fabric I thought would be perfect for my thrift store chair re-do.  You can't get the full beauty from the pic but here is the fabric:

This beautiful upholstery fabric was a little pricey... it ran $45 a yard.  I also purchased some coordinating material to cover the ottoman I got from thrift store as well...but I'll feature that in a different post.

So as alot of you know, reupholstering the seat of a chair is super easy! All you have to do is flip chair over and remove the cushion, figure out what color you are going to paint the frame, and then recover seat cushion with new fabric and reattach.  Easy enough right?

You remember how the original chair looked from this posting here.  So this is my chair without the seat cushion:

I decided to go with white for the color of the chair frame.  TIP: White gives everything a nice fresh look.  This chair took one entire bottle of spray paint and I still need to go over again with another bottle or so to get a nice clean look. Actually I should have sanded the chair down a lil before painting but I was being lazy which is prob one of the reasons I need some much spray paint for each chair :(

Then I took my fabric and used my staple gun to recover the cushion. Since it was in good condition already, I didn't need to add any additional padding...but sometimes depending on chair, you may have to add some.

I'm not done yet but I'm always extra excited to see how the finished product would look so I sat the newly reupholstered cushion in the chair (without attaching) to give me a full view.  Here is how it looks for now:

 

Now that I see it, Im not really feeling the rattan/net backing on this chair with the look I'm going for so I have decided to cover the back of the chair as well.  Covering the back isn't quite as easy as recovering seat cushions. This will be my first time trying this so stay tuned for the finished product!

My thrift store find!!

Today I decided to stop by the thrift store to see if I could find any furniture pieces I could revamp and came across 2 chairs and a small ottoman!  I got all three pieces for $23!! What a steal!!  Stay tuned to see how I paint and reupholster these! I cant wait! :)

My DIY Chair Renovation!

Last week I told you guys about my thrift store find here...a basic wooden chair I purchased for only $7.95!

Well I finished it up this past weekend and I LOVE the way it came out!  The first thing I had to decide on is what color I wanted to paint the chair and what fabric I wanted to use to cover the seat.  Awhile ago I fell in love with an accent chair at the furniture store that I thought would go perfect in our bedroom. See below:

Too cute right?  However, the chair is $349!!  So I decided to get a throw pillow in that print for the bed, let a little time pass, and then try to convince the hubby to agree to letting me get a chair that I wanted mainly for aesthetics, one we really didn't "need" (hard sell...lol)

Honestly, I didn't really want us to spend that much on one chair either so I decided to let that be my inspiration chair for this project.  Since I couldn't find the exact fabric anywhere, I purchased another throw pillow ($19.99)  and cut it open to use to cover my seat cushion.  Here is the pillow before I cut it open:

I used an Exacto knife (or you can use a seam ripper) and cut the seams to take the pillow apart:

I cut the seams around the entire pillow. Now the fabric looks like this:

I have two pieces of fabric--the front and back of the pillow.  But I had a problem. One of the pieces alone didn't cover the entire seat cushion.  So I cut strips from the other piece of fabric to add to the other.  Then I sewed those pieces to three sides of the fabric. Luckily I didn't need to add too much.

After sewing them on, its time to cover my seat cushion.  First, I removed the seat cushion from the chair frame.  This is really easy...flip the chair over and remove screws.  Remember, before buying a chair to "re-do" , check to make sure it will be easy to remove cushion and easy to reattach.  Once the cushion is out,  I got my spray glue out and sprayed it on the cushion. You can also add extra padding as well. I was going to do that but forget to get the materials from the store...lol.  Anywho, after I spray glued cushion, I attached fabric...making sure I left fabric hanging off edges of each side. Next I folded over the edges and glued them down on back side...see below:

Then I went around the edges and stapled fabric down.  All done with that piece!

For the chair's frame, I decided to go with black.  Make sure to sand down your furniture before painting old furniture....then wipe it off with a little soap and water to make sure all the particles are gone.  Let it dry and now you are ready to paint! I like immediate results so I opted to use spray paint.  I went with Rust Oleum Lacquer spray paint from Home Depot ...$4.98.  I ended up using the whole bottle!

Once the paint has thoroughly dried, it was time to pop my newly covered seat cushion back in! I also decided to cover the arms of the chair a little too. I didn't take any pics of that but it was easy... just used some leftover fabric and a glue gun (a crafter's best friend...lol). Check out the finished product!!  Not bad for a total of  $33.00 spent... I'd say it gives my inspiration chair a run for its money!! :)

 What do you think?