I tell ya, if you ever hit a dry spell of creativity and inspiration, 10-15 minutes perusing all the amazing blogs in the home design/decorating/refinishing community and you'll practically bound away from the computer screen, eyes crazed, in pursuit of the nearest project not tied down.
Which is what happened to me Wednesday after reading Little Miss Penny Wenny's Chevron chair reupholstery project. What a wonderful transformation! I love the silvery wood color, the fabric is to-die-for, and I especially love how taut she was able to get the fabric all around her batting. The finished product looks very professional ~ and I was completely inspired. How hard could it be to reupholster a chair?
I literally bounded into my living room, grabbed this chair I've been dying to upholster, and started tearing away at the piping.
I got this far:
Ummm, no one told me how extremely difficult it was going to be to rip out professionally stapled fabric.
I mean, this chair is originally an Ethan Allen and by golly, they know how to secure them some fabric! It occurred to me that every time I read about re-upholstering on a blog, the author always says, "First, I removed the old fabric." Humph! Sounds so easy, doesn't it?
I realized, as I went to grab my needle-nose pliers, that I'd never actually seen details on how, exactly, this removal of old fabric and staples was accomplished. I'd always figured, how hard can it be?
Well, believe you me, this fabric was not coming off without a fight. The staples are so small and so tight and so numerous, I actually felt completely stumped.
After about 5 minutes of heaving and pulling, I headed back to the computer for a little help.
Lo and behold, what is this?
Browsing on craiglist for the umpteenth time all week and finding nothing, I came across this crazy/beautiful/uncertain sofa table and felt that familiar 'I think I just found something amazing' tingle begin deep down in my toes:
Three hours later, there I was at a rather seedy apartment complex in an even seedier part of town, my sister and her two precious babies in tow for safety (what??). Strength in numbers, right? .....or something like that :-)
Thanks to my sister's strong genes (we like to call ourselves 'sturdy girls' :-)), we were able to heave ho this baby down two flights of stairs and into the back of my suburban.
...Let me pause here to admit I'm a bit concerned about two things on this piece.
One, it's missing a panel in the top, which the owner told me used to be a smoked mirror (yikes?):
And Two, well ~ you guessed it ~ the smoked mirror backing on each end:
At this point, I really have no idea what I'm going to do about either one of these issues, but I must be completely honest~~
I fell in love with the legs.
What's a girl to do?
I'm also hoping it will be a perfect fit behind our new sofa in the living room.
So....... I guess my next step is to head back to my wonderful blogging community until I am so inspired with new ideas for this piece I'll be busting at the seams to tackle it.
Ahhhh, how good it feels to be back in the saddle again.
Jaimee
Labels: Reupholstery
