Tuesday, March 29, 2011

One


Happy First Birthday to Isaac Raymond Wang! He turned 1 yesterday and we had a little party for him. It was so much fun and he was such a good sport, despite being tired, sick, and cranky. So many people came and loved on my little man. He (we) are so blessed. Here are some pictures.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

A project

I read a lot of design and crafting blogs. This leads to obsessions over things like reupholstering an old chair, which I wouldn't necessarily call healthy. Anyway, after reading about a lot of before/after chair projects on Design Sponge, I was inspired to find an old chair and reupholster it. Since I hadn't done this before, I went in search of an "easy" side chair for my living room, to replace my husband's (broken) college futon, which we rarely sit on.

I found my chair at the Salvation Army in Moscow for $16. It had black legs and navy velour fabric. It had been recovered once, and really not well. Here is the before. As you can see, the back was falling off. Sorry for the low-quality pictures, our camera battery died, and we have a new one on order. These are phone pics.
Underneath the velour I found a layer of 60's upholstry fabric, probably the original, cream and faded red. Note all the staples on the ground!
Under the red fabric was the original padding, which was in fairly good shape, so I decided to re-use it, and just add some fresh foam and batting to provide additional padding. I also added foam and batting to the back. Sorry, I didn't take photos after I added padding.
I learned a lot in this process! Primarily, I learned that I really enjoy reupholstering chairs. This is good news, because I have a lot of leftover materials (foam, batting, tack tape, staples, etc.). So if I find another chair with good bones, I can do another one, and maybe sell it?

Here is the after. I painted the legs white, found the fabric on sale at Joann's, and tufted fabric-covered buttons, and everything! I even did a "real" upholstry job on the bottom (no pic) and the back. I'm very pleased with the outcome, and Jeremy says it passes the living-room test.