Reupholstering Second Hand Kitchen Chairs

Hi, you guys!  Remember that $25 kitchen set I got a while ago?  You know, the one I scored on Kijiji and had featured on Love on Sunday?

Yeah, that one!

Well the chairs were looking a little... rough around the edges.  Literally.  That fabric was the farthest thing from fresh, and yet the shape of the chairs is so mod that I felt they needed a bit of updating.  Not to mention, now that the hutch is finished the chairs deserve a little love too!  Here's how their story goes:

A little background on the chairs: the sticker shows they are made in Denmark, manufactured by Farstrup.  I did minimal research, but it looks like these chairs were made in the 70's or 80's, and a set like this seems to be valued at around $125 - PER CHAIR!  Can you believe that?  I paid $25 for the chairs and table, so that's $5 a piece.  Not bad, eh?!?!

I let them live with the greying and fraying tweed for a little while, and then on one of our many trips to IKEA with my mom, we decided to check out their fabric options.  The wide-striped black and white instantly drew me in, an my mom gave the genius idea to mix the wide and narrow stripes.  She's awesome like that.

The process was pretty straight forward, to be honest.  We pried the backing off, cut off a piece of fabric to fit and stapled on, doing our best to keep the lines straight.  The bottoms were screwed off and then back into place and the backs were glued on, with a little help from some clamps to make sure everything stayed in place while the glue dried.  Oh, and we did not remove the old fabric - the new stuff just went right over top of it. Oh, and also, yes, I did originally have the stripes going in different directions, but we had a vote and my original pick wasn't cutting it - my whole family voted for same direction.  Glad their inner interior decorators came out for a few seconds to help me out!

Here is what we ended up with.  Pardon the shift in yellow light vs. daylight - we upholstered in the dark while the MVAs were on.  Thank goodness we finished before that epic Justin Timberlake concert started.  Oh wait, was that still during the awards show?

Anyway, I could not be happier with how the chairs have turned out.  Ready to see them in action int he kitchen?  Me too!

It's a much better fit with the black and white in the hutch now too.  I like how the pieces go together without having the same pattern, and I think it's also great that the kitchen cupboards are white with black hardware, so the whole kitchen kind of matches without matching at all since all pieces are from different places (though potentially all from the same era!).

In usual Learner Observer fashion, here's the cost breakdown:

• $25 for the set
• $24 in SOFIA fabric (not all used) at $7.99 per meter (wide & narrow)
• $15 for staple gun and staples
  • TOTAL: $64

I can hardly believe I got a kitchen set for less than $500, let alone for $64!!!!  PINCH ME!  K, don't... I hate being pinched!  Let's just look at the before and after, shall we?Though I can appreciate what the neutral tweed did for the chairs (which was basically keep them as boring as possible), the fabric was in really bad shape and I think it's just so much more fun now!

Our kitchen is actually coming together, and I could not be happier with how it's all turning out!  The best part is that though it's taking me a while to sort out all of the details, and that can be frustrating for me because I'm not a very patient person, it's really the best thing for us because it means we can really think about the things we're choosing and get the pieces that are most perfect for our home and for us.  I should make a poster of this with the words "patience pays off" to remind myself the next time I want to hurry up and be finished decorating the whole house in 8 minutes!

So, my lovely readers, how did I do?  Or should I say, 'how did WE do?' because once again my mom was my #1 helper with this project - thanks mama!  Any tips on what I should put on the fabric to protect it from potential future spills or slobbery puppies?  Tempted to go for the Never Wet solution.  Thoughts?

Last thing, wanna come over for dinner and try these babies out?  They're actually super comfy!