A Lesson Learned

Happy Holidays everyone!  I hope you are all in the holiday spirit, I know I will be in about two more days. I've been working on a never ending custom job & it is nearly finished. Then I'll get into the Holiday swing.

Early in the spring a family friend gave us a very dated dining set. It was a table, four chairs & a buffet. I already showed you the buffet, you can read about it here.  The table is big & heavy & the chairs have that cane back. Two of the chairs had big holes punched in the caning.  Here is a picture of one of the chairs:

It was going to be impossible to repair & to expensive to replace, so I went with plan B.  I'm getting ahead of myself here, we first painted them Old White to match the buffet & did a clear wax on them. Here is the only before picture I have of the table (base), unfortunately I had already put one coat on it before I remembered to take the picture.

Now the dilemma with the chairs. I remembered Miss Mustard Seed had upholstered a caned back chair & used her tutorial as my guide, you can read about it here.  We went to our local upholstery shop & got some great advice on cost effective material & some tricks of the trade. My Mom & I plan on taking an upholstery class after the holidays, my hubby said he'd like to take it too. It'd be nice to know exactly what we are doing when it comes to this upholstery stuff.  Anyway, we used drop cloth fabric on the chairs. I of course had to add a graphic to the seat.  I seen the perfect one at The Graphics Fairy & added it to all four chairs. Here is how they turned out.



Front



Back

Don't you just love that scrolly detail.....

Compliments of The Graphics Fairy!

 All four in their new look....

I love the contrast of the white Gimp against the tan fabric, it really gives it that finished look.

One last look at all that hard work, approximately 25,000 staples & 500 glue sticks later....



Sold



Finally a complete set. They look pretty good together, don't you think!? We learned alot from doing this project. First, Don't be afraid of the unknown, do your homework & it's not so intimidating. Second, Get advice when you need it, makes the job so much easier. Third, once you've finished your project the next one will seem so do-able.  I hope this gives you some inspiration to give your scary project a try.  I'd love to hear about it.

 Thanks for visiting & take time to enjoy the Holidays!! Dee