Monday, September 19, 2011

Chair Upcycle


One day, when I am even more grown up, I am going to have a beautiful sewing room.  And in it is going to be lots of pretty girl things - including the sewing chair I just rehashed!  This was a bit of a nightmare from the beginning and I am sure this chair was determined to stay just as it was!  Here she is before.



I brought it for $15 off Trade Me.  I had a $5 bid on it right up until pretty much the last 4 minutes, when someone came in and put a one off $14 bid on it.  I was suspicious this could be a price hiker but what do you do?  I wanted it, I paid more for it than I wanted, but I liked it!

So getting it home I gave it a sand back.  I wasn't sure how far back I was to go, and being a bit over it after half an hour figured I had done enough haha.  I started with quite a rough sandpaper, and then finished over it with a very fine one.  Technical huh.  Hubby then came along and being the perfectionist he is he attacked it and smoothed out the grooves I hadn't.  Too lazy?  Or just giving the chair character?  You decide.


So after giving it a good brush over, it was time to paint.  I had specially gone to see a Dulux Paint Specialist to ensure I got the right paint, as wanted it to be as near perfect as possible.  After having a major discussion with the guy about how it has to be an oil based paint and why, and choosing my shade from 40 different shades of cream, I had my perfect paint.

I gave it its first coat, and had my suspicions something was up with the paint.  It was soaking into the wood.   He had assured me I didn't need to primer it if I was using an oil based paint.  Hubby came home and asked me why I was painting my chair with a water based paint.  Water based!!!  He sold me water based!  After all that ... oh well, mistakes happen I guess.  I wasn't to know, paint is paint to me!

I left it to dry, sanded it back again and gave it another coat.


It still looked shocking, so again I gave it a light sand and gave it its third paint.  This time it looked OK!  I left it to dry, and while doing this Mr 4 year old decided it needed some dirty finger marks on the top.  I was well over the painting etc by now, so decided this was yet another character mark.  Haha lazy or giving the chair character?  Again, you decide!

While this was drying I attacked the cushion, ripping off the nasty brown vinyl.  I wanted to give it a bit of extra padding so cut some quilt batting out as extra bum wadding.  I figure as my sewing chair its going to have alot of bum time so deserves to be extra comfy!!


I then cut out my fabric, using the brown vinyl as my guideline, but cutting extra to take into account the extra wadding I had added.


So then it was time to use my trusty staple gun and secure down the material.  First the staple gun jammed after the first use.  I unjammed it, went to use it again and it jammed.  On trying to unjam it I broke it.  It was well and truely stuck now.  Hubby came to my rescue and fixed it.  And on the first go I jammed it again.  By now I was in a wee huff and again hubby came to my rescue by giving me his industrial gun to use.  I had to promise him not to to shoot anything with it in fustration though.  So great, I was in action again, but found out I didn't have the strength to get the huge staples in.  So had to go around afterwards and bang them in properly with a hammer.  But they were in and the chair was complete.


I am not sure I am 100% happy with it.  Am still considering giving it that shabby chic, distressed look and attacking it with some sandpaper.  Maybe.  I am going to stare at it for a few days and see how I feel.  But all in all, for a first attempt, I think it passes.  Now to work on getting a sewing room so the chair has somewhere to live ....

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