Reupholstering Adventures In Which I Transform A Chair

So.  We have this chair.

THIS chair.  

We got it at a consignment shop last fall, and I always meant to recover it because fleshy pink really isn't my thing.  But I never got around to it, and it soooo does not match with what we're trying to do in our living room.  I couldn't decide if I wanted to try and rip the pink vinyl awfulness off, or if I should just try and put fabric over it.  I knew it would be way easier and more on my skill level to just put fabric over it, but I was worried since the vinyl was so slippery that the cover would just slide around.  I ended going with the covering route anyway and just securing it down where I could with E-6000 glue the best I could.

So to get started, I pinned the fabric to the chair, wrongside out, and then marked it and took it off and sewed across the top of the back and down to the arms.  The other part was painful...I had to hand-sew it in on the top.  I didn't take a closeup picture because the stitches look pretty skiwampus, but just trust me, it was a total pain.  

Altogether, though, the top only took about 4 or 5 hours...which is a long time if you're waiting to eat something but a short time in Magical DIY Land.  Just sayin'.

THEN my friend Casey at work graciously let me borrow his staple gun.  Originally, I was planning on sewing the bottom on, too, but my sore fingers protested.  I am so glad I just used a staple gun.  No one will see the bottom and it was light years faster. 

As I was tucking the fabric around the front, I couldn't figure out a good way to get the corners to stay without stapling them.  

Normally, this is where anyone else would get those button-things for furniture and staple those in...but when you combine laziness with impatience, it turns into creativity...at least for me.  

So I spent the next 2 hours making bows to cover them.  Naturally.

(Tim thinks I am utterly crazy.)

Voila! 

I actually like it a lot better, so there you go.  I think it adds a nice touch. Tim might think it's too girly, but that's another story.

So here's the whole chair:

I like it so much better.  It's nowhere near the eyesore it was before, and it feels so good to have that finished! Our living room is slowly coming together.  

P.S. Yes, that IS a Santa pillow.  We celebrate early here at the Stratford house.