Dining Chair refit

When my parents retired, they downsized. They sent a lot of furniture my way - which is awesome, since we have this nice big house that is twice as large as any home we've lived in before. Quite a bit of it is antique. This is really more because my family never gets rid of furniture, than anything else. (Seriously. When my mom cleaned out a secretary desk that her mother had given her, she found keepsakes and cards from World War II.)

Anyway, we wound up with a gorgeous dining table (that Tim hates, because the feet are uneven and he thinks the disks I put underneath to level it are "garbage", and he won't approve any of the rugs I've shown him that would help stabilize it) and 11 dining chairs (that Tim hates even more, because they were built in the mid-19th century when people weren't as big, and they are admittedly narrow).

But the table and chairs that we both liked and would have purchased, costs about $5000 for the set, so we're going to stick with my gorgeous table and chairs.

Oh, did I mention the chairs came to us with horsehair cushions and webbing supports?

And a mixture of fabric covers? 

Well, it was definitely time to update them. 

So the first thing I had to do, was cut new bases out of 1/2" plywood. Luckily, my dad also sent a bunch of tools with all the furniture, so I used my new (to me) portable jigsaw. 

Next step, was replacing the cushions. I first tried cutting pieces from a memory foam mattress topper - this actually did not work very well. The foam is not firm enough, so when you sit on the cushion your butt immediately sinks to the plywood. Oh, well. Then I bought some 4" thick high-density foam, and that worked out much better. (These photos, though, are of the memory foam - the process is exactly the same, just the end result is different.)

I used a spray adhesive to stick the foam to the plywood.

See how those edges are little jagged? That's because I used scissors to cut the foam. It happened on both the memory foam and the high-density foam. But that's ok, because the next step was to cover the foam with some cotton quilt batting (I had a bunch of scraps, and managed to use almost all of them on this project).

And then I stapled this to the underside. This helped smooth out the sides. 

And then, the fabric. Remember that rocking chair I did a rehab project on last fall? Well, this is the same design, but on a smaller scale.

My mom went nuts over these. She didn't even realize I used Dr. Who fabric, she thought it was just a pretty blue damask. My sister said the same. Tim keeps calling me a geek for it...but he likes it, too. He hasn't mentioned getting new chairs in a while.

Oh yeah - I've only managed to re-fit six of these so far. Some of the chairs needed a bit more TLC, and I'm still getting comfortable with working on them. But they're coming along. Maybe next year, when we host Thanksgiving again, we'll have them all complete. I'm not in a rush. 

Rocking Chair Rehab

My parents offloaded a lot of their old house to our new one. A fantastic maple dining table and chairs, a chest of drawers, most of my dad's tools (a lot of which were actually my grandfathers' tools...which makes them even more awesome).

And this.

It's a child-sized rocking chair. It was my dad's, when he was a kid. The seat cover is crocheted, we don't quite remember which relative made it (either my Gram, or my great-grandmother), we only know that it was very dingy from years spent languishing in a Michigan basement. 

See what I mean? 

As much as I love crochet items, I thought it was time to bring this little rocking chair into the 21st century. 

This was one of the easiest projects I've done. All it took was a bit of patience, some batting, some fabric, and a staple gun. And the patience was truly optional, it took about 20 minutes altogether. But sometimes you get interrupted by a toddler. 

(Bad lighting, had to use the flash, but...you see? Sometimes you just have to stop.)

So, first step was pulling all the old staples:

Someone has done this before.

And then pulling off the old padding:

And then I forgot to take a picture, but I replaced the padding with a double-layer of quilt batting, and a piece of plain muslin on top. And stapled everything to the underside of the seat.

No one sees the underside, anyway.

Notice how that munchkin has a different shirt on? That's one of those interruptions I mentioned.

And now for the top layer:

 This is not an exact science.

And, as I said, no one sees the bottom.

 See how pretty it looks from the right side?

Yes, that is Dr. Who fabric. I found it on Spoonflower. 

And that's it. Less than 20 minutes of hands-on time, under an hour with toddler interruptions. Pretty awesome! Added a bit of furniture polish, and you'd never know this chair is older than the television show that inspired the fabric.