ReCovered Antiques: February 2012

Last weekend I found a chair at Cause For Paws ( http://cfpaws.com/ ). It was missing a tag so I asked someone working there, they marked the chair at $4.99 -- SCORE!

Yes, I know it ~~looked~~ was terribly dirty. Yes,I know it seems someone did a terrible job recovering the cushion with a pillowcase (which actually is a great idea). And YES I wanted it! Recovering chairs is pretty simple and the difference can be incredible.

I came across the Rustoleum color Lagoon one of the 235,534762 times I went to Lowes/ Home Depot/ Jo Anns/ Michaels/ AC Moore this month and picked up a can. In my head I envisioned the color with a large peacock feather print; I could only find a smaller than imagined pattern but decided it would have to do. I put the supplies in the car, packed up Folgers, and headed to the Garage.

I've recovered chairs before and thought this was going to be easy peasy. I unscrewed the seat and saw 4 layers of fabric. Rhiannon, Alison, and I made remarks about how "cool" this was.

Ruh Roh Raggy. For the small price of $5 I got a magic chair!!! Every time I took off a piece of fabric there was another underneath, secured by dozens of staples, someone must have let their child play with a staple gun during quiet time.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. SEVEN LAYERS!! We tried to figure out the age of the chair based on the patterns but honestly, where was Fabric 3 ever okay? Apparently they liked layer number 5 so much that they Recovered the chair with the fabric again.

Check out the amount of staples in this picture. This is how is was on almost every layer. Were they mad when they did this -- getting out a little aggression possibly? Or maybe like I mentioned earlier a parent was trying to have a moment alone and let their child play with a staple gun during quiet time. All I know is that it was a PAIN to take them all out. If you have ever seen Four Brothers and remember the shootout scene you will remember that the house the brothers were hiding in/shooting from was riddled with holes, that is how this board looked once all the staples were removed. And just in case you don't know the scene I'm talking about we're lucky to have a little gem called YouTube (PS it's sad at the end so if you cry easily don't watch the whole thing. Also the language/violence is not so kid friendly):

And now, for the moment we have all been waiting for -- or maybe it was just me. Time to recover! First I covered the cushion and wooden slat with with batting and stapled that in place. Next, I covered the batting with my fabric and TADA!

For the paint, I my brother sprayed gray Rustoleum primer, followed by 2 thin coats of the Rustoleum Lagoon, and finally covered it with a clear glossy coat.