Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Reupholstering the "Old Yellow Chair"

We are incredibly (perhaps foolishly) confident in our ability to "wing it" when it comes to home projects. There are a lot of things that "we" (ahem, Jeremy) legitimately know how to do. Upholstery was not one of those things. We had been wanting to have this chair recovered for years. Did we have any idea (pre-internet research) what we were doing? Nope. Did we do it anyway? Yep. 

This chair was dropped off on Jeremy's front porch as a joke 10 years ago. He had it in all of his bachelor pads and when we got married we kept it since it was such a neat, vintage chair. In the garage. Because it was ripped yellow vinyl. 


Before:



Micah enjoyed the "ripping" phase of the project. We found 97 cents, a golf tee, a soda tab and lots of candy wrappers. A bachelor chair indeed. 


We meticulously labeled all the pieces we removed so we could remember how they went back on and use them as patterns for the new pieces



We thought the chair was 30-40 years old based on fabric and wear-and-tear. Once we stripped it, we discovered another layer of fabric underneath. It was held on with upholstery nails instead of staples, meaning it's probably closer to 50-60 years old. Lots of butts on that chair. 





Yes. Your furniture has cardboard in it. Ours is cooler because it has repurposed blender cardboard leftover from Christmas. 


Micah is digging the extra padding we added


After:




We're pleased with how it turned out!