NOTE:  Every single time I finish up a project another one rears its ugly head.  See:  That red wall.  It has to go, but I HATE painting.  Moving on!

I found this little beauty at my local Salvation Army a few weeks ago.  It was $2.00.  Seriously.  As soon as I saw it I started dragging it towards the checkout counter.  Just look at those lines.  The beautiful curved wood.  Love.  I love it.  The original upholstery……No, I did not love it.  But it passed the smell test, from three feet away and then incrementally closer until I had my nose plastered against it.  If it had reeked of cigarette smoke or other smelly things you don’t even want to consider, I would never have bought it – no matter how little they were asking for it.

But apparently, they thought no one would buy it because it was so, so ugly, hence the wonderful price.  Yay, for me!

Lovely, bendy wood arms.

Filthy, but not for long.

Even more stunning from the back.  Just ignore the hideous upholstery. 

Okay.  First things first.  If you look closely at photo three, you’ll see that this chair is attached with two bolts on each side.  There were another three  3 1/2 inch screws on the front of the chair that attached it to the base.   That’s it.  Awesome.

I got out our trusty allen wrench set and got to work.  Easy peasy.  The screws took longer, but I mastered those bad boys.  Even if I had to rest between each one.

Then I started ripping off 942 year old upholstery.  Gross.  Seriously gross stuff.  Even if it doesn’t smell.  Old upholstery is just gross.  Good thing it was going away.

More ripping and tearing.

Ahhh, the loveliness.  If you read my post from earlier last week, you’ll remember that I got this bolt of material for $2.50!!  Yay, for thrift stores.

Just compare…..

Nope, there is no comparison.

After I removed most of the sections of old material, I measured out what I would need to replace it with on the back of my new material…… (ignore my sewing machine, it was out for yet another project I’m working on)

I placed the new material over the wooden bones of the chair……

Got out my trusty staple gun and went to town.  Stretch and staple in place, stretch and staple in place.  Rinse and repeat all the way around the back.

Then I scoured my pillow collection for an unredeemable one to sacrifice for the open bottom of the chair.

Slice it open and rip…….

These contraptions are for the back of the chair that you can see in the fourth photo from the top.  I ended up throwing the cardboard one on the left away and just stapling that top portion in place from the underside, but the two metal pieces are gold.

I wrapped the right side edge around and pressed the sharp as hades points through…..

Ditto for the left side…..Then started hammering the right side into place.  Did the same thing on the left side.  Denton came through at one point and asked why I was using his framing hammer.  Because, I couldn’t find MY hammer.  And in my world a hammer is a hammer.  Please don’t send me emails explaining the difference.

I measured out my repurposed pillowcase to the underside of the chair and stapled it in place.  (this took the place of the nasty black felt that was on the original, that you can see in photo 5)

Flipped it back over and put the three screws and four bolts back into place and ….. Tada!

I am so pleased with how it turned out.

It’s soft as a cloud.

And it looks like a baby lamb.

Don’t you love those wood angles?

Love it.  I love it.

I want to display it like this so everyone can see the marvelous back.

Exquisite.  I love it, did I mention that to you yet?  The moral of this story is, don’t let ugly, outdated upholstery stop you from buying something that you find lovely.  All you need is an afternoon, a $2.50 bolt of material from your thrift store and your own trusty staple gun,  allen wrench and framing hammer.

You can do it!

P.S.  Here are the tools I used on this project, just in case you need to build your own collection.

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