Vintage love in progress

The chair that I found on the side of a road last year, and had instant visions of revamping... anyone remember that chair?

The sad reality of it was that despite my best intentions, this chair remained untouched for over a year. It's had plenty of use, and is super comfortable, but the faded dirty fabric and worn paint remained a sorry detail. I visited a few fabric stores but nothing caught my eye. I knew this project wouldn't get off the ground until I'd settled on fabric to recover the cushion with, and then I'd have a better idea what colour to paint it. Also, I've never done this kind of DIY before. I didn't possess the little necessities such as sandpaper, plastic sheeting to work on, primers, staple guns - and never seemed to get around to buying them. Something else always took priority with the leftover money at the end of each week's budget.

Fortunately, this project got a little reboot a few weeks ago, when I was at IKEA. Of all places, this was where I found the fabric I liked best. A little ironic - I know - as the whole point of this chair is to have a little statement piece that's unlike the rest of our IKEA dominated furnishings.

Anyhow, I bought a yard of the fabric, got home, folded it neatly over the chair's cushion, and have been 'meditating' on whether or not it works. Then over this past weekend, I bit the bullet and borrowed a staple gun from a friend. I unscrewed the cushion, cut the fabric down to size, pulled it into place and got serious with the staple gun... et voilà! 

I like it - a lot. I'd even be happy to keep the wood the same colour, but it's pretty grubby, so I might as well go ahead and repaint it. Besides, with our beige carpet and cream walls, the apartment needs more splashes of colour. Having consulted various DIY blogs over the weekend, I called by Home Depot (the equivalent of Bunnings, for my Aussie readers) with a scrap of the fabric, hoping to find a paint that might match one of the coloured stripes. I had a pale bronze in mind, as we have a few other turquoise things around and - as much as I love turquoise and teal - I hate too much matchy-matchy. I also have a deep dislike of pink, especially for decorating. Lime green I don't mind, but not for a whole piece of furniture.

Amazingly (because I had Miss Pie with me) it only took about fifteen minutes to find all the bits and pieces needed for the paint job. I couldn't find a pale bronze, but I think 'Champagne Mist' has a promising ring to it.

So. To borrow a phrase from a good friend, all my ducks are lined up. This little vintage baby is getting some love at last... as soon as the rain stops, that is. This wet weather is my final obstacle, but being Los Angeles, I'm confident I'll get a decent run of the sunshine needed to paint outside, and soon.

Stay tuned...

Trash to treasure

Remember the chair I found on the side of a road last year? Remember the good intentions I had? This chair was going to look g-roovy. A unique little piece of character in our otherwise IKEA-dominated home.

Sadly, it hasn't happened yet. Mind you, it's not like the chair has been sitting, abandoned in a lonely corner of a garage, gathering even more dust. No. We've seen some good times together, that chair and I. Many an afternoon escape coffee, and evening wind-down wine, have been enjoyed on that chair - outside on the back patio of our old apartment. It was sheltered well from all elements, and instead of re-covering and painting it, I've simply enjoyed the comfort it offered.

Now, it has a place in the sun, on the balcony of our new apartment. There's no shelter, though, so once summer is over, this old chair is going to need to be rehomed inside. That means I have until late September to pull my finger out and fix 'er up, because it looks a little too loved to be inside as is.

Between now and the end of summer, I have a soon-to-be six-year-old's birthday party to organise, and an almost-month-long trip to Australia.

I have a feeling the fix-up is going to be somewhat of a rush job. Thankfully, the chair has great bones and is solid, so it's more just a matter of making cosmetic changes.

In the mean time, look what I rescued from one of the trash rooms in our complex yesterday:

Someone threw that out? This frame even has a sturdy hook on the back - all it needs is a paint job and some colourful fabric stapled to the back. Easy, and the perfect smaller project to practice on before tackling the chair.

Wish me luck. And stop laughing...

Feline plans

Remember the chair I reclaimed from the side of a road?
The one I have plans to fix up nicely?

Looks like Emily also has plans for this chair.

A place to plan the demise of her human captors.

Actually, that evil expression is just a yawn...
...but we should consider it a warning.

For now, sleep beckons.
Again.

(Speaking of cats, I'll be attending a crew wrap party and screening for Puss In Boots tomorrow... yippee!)

Vintage love

Before I ramble on about my latest project, let's get one thing straight. This is anything but a Mormon Mommy blog. As much as I fantasise about fixing things up, DIY and I do not have much of a history together. The last time I repainted something I rescued from the side of a road was about six or seven years ago. It was just a small side table - something that a three-year-old could have painted with ease.

So when I was walking the Faery home from school yesterday, and saw a lonely old dining chair sitting on a nature strip, outside an apartment building, I wasn't sure what to do... but something about that chair was calling me. I saw potential.

Only one problem - we were early into a twenty-minute walk home, in 30ºC heat, with Miss Pie in the stroller, because J had the car. No way could I grab that chair. When we got home, I rang him up and begged him pretty please to swing by that street on his way home, and if he didn't think the chair was a piece of junk, could he pretty please toss it in the back of the car and bring it home.

Five hours later, J walked in the door, carrying this chair. I was genuinely shocked that nobody else had already reclaimed it. As soon as I saw it again, it felt like I was welcoming home a new friend. There's a bizarre pull towards this chair - I'm even experiencing déjà vu as I type this sentence... spooky.

Anyhow, maybe I've been spending too much time on Pinterest, but I have grand plans for this chair. A completely new colour - perhaps something bright, like turquoise or yellow - and some cheerful new fabric to reupholster it. A pretty chair for the girls' room.

Naturally, I know nothing about such a process, but... how hard could it be? This is what the internet is for, right? Okay, so I don't even own a pair of plyers right now (moving overseas will do that - I've yet to reacquire many things we didn't bring with us). But dammit, I'm making a trip to Home Depot very soon.

(A little secret: I'm not bad with my hands. I used to top the class with my woodwork projects, many years ago. I like using my hands. I even used to daydream about doing some kind of carpentry course. Maybe I will one day, when I live somewhere that actually has the space for a little shed out the back. I'd be in heaven.)

So why am I writing about this? I figure that if I declare my intentions in writing now, the chair will spend less time languishing on our back patio. Blogging about it will force me to pull my finger out, and actually get started on this project much sooner than I would otherwise. I'm a procrastinator by nature, but I can also be obsessive about completing certain tasks, once I've begun. Just ask J how late I went to bed after assembling a dollhouse for the Faery's last birthday. Must. Finish.

Happily, this chair is as sturdy as they come. According to the label underneath, it was made by Stanley Furniture, in Virginia. I love that it wasn't from a cheap labour factory in a third world country. Even more impressive - my Google research tells me that the average dining chair from this company retails between $500-$800. Each. I realise that kind of money is normal to some, but I can't - for the life of me - imagine spending so much money on a single chair.

I get the impression this chair was sitting in someone's garage, alongside other DIY projects. The tiny splatters all over it are not from dirt - they're golden flecks, the casualty of another project. I pledge a better outcome for it.

For now, this lovely chair is sitting just outside our back door. Every time I walk past and catch a glimpse, I smile.