I’ve known this chair since I was in second grade, the same age as my third child. My parents hauled it to my house when my daughter turned five years old. It has served us well. I’ve been wanting to paint all my childhood furniture since before my daughter was born. She’ll turn 16 this fall. For years I have had to do my projects with one arm keeping my daughter at bay. She loves to help, but so many things I get myself into are and were much bigger than her and I knew I’d be sorry if I handed over the tools to her.
This summer after much, “Mom, are you going to paint my furniture this summer?” I finally sighed and said, “Why don’t you paint it.” And I really thought she would drop it, but my daughter is a bit like me, she likes a project. So I taught her how to sand and prep and prime and paint and by golly she painted all her furniture with very little help from me. She’s proving to be quite useful. I’m sure it will be her and me painting the floor, fixing the wall and making the curtains. Or just me if she gets distracted, again, she’s a bit like her mom.
This is one of the dumpster chairs. Several of you darling readers have asked for a tutorial, so I’ll be working on that as I finish the other one, but know this….I usually don’t go into a project with a whole head full of knowledge on the subject, I just have this “I can do that” sort of attitude. Which means, I’m most likely doing it wrong or at least not as well as a professional.
But, for 16 bucks, I think this chair will serve me well and I haven’t heard any complaints from the folks sitting in it.
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Hey, nice job! I like the absence of gold on that first chair but am feeling maybe it needs a happy little stencil where the flowers used to be.
Oh, and I bought a chair for $10 at a garage sale. Can you please help me fix it? I think I need to do a post about it soon. That and the two crappy painted wooden chairs that I wouldn’t sell in our garage sale because I have “a project in mind”. (The same project I had when I bought the first chair almost 10 years go, in fact.)
Yuh Jenni, I’ll get right on those stencils, that shouldn’t take me more than oh, let’s say another ten or twelve years. bwahahahah.
I love love love your covered chairs and can’t wait for a tutorial!!
There’s just certain projects that take priority over others
As a daughter who helped her mom paint her mom’s room… uhm… good luck keeping yours focused! When I was her age I helped my mom do venetian plaster in her room… it was grueling. Now, being down on your hands & knees to do the floors… I have a feeling the two of you will trade a few choice words! I hope you have a good incentive! I didn’t… my mom was making me work to pay off my cell phone bill. The only reason it had to be paid off was because she texted me all summer long when we didn’t have a texting plan!
So cool! I’ve never seen covered legs before – at least not on a chair. :0) I like it!
I am very impressed with the furniture. that is the kind of stuff that I love to do. Back when I used to have more time that is.
I am just so curious as to whether you used staples or just how you covered the chair with the awesome paisley fabric. It looks very professional to me even if you are flying by the seat of your pants. So cool!!!
Great job on both chairs. You girls are so smart!
Love the fabric you chose on the chairs too. I’m a lot like you, just jump in doing when you don’t know what you are doing. I do alot of upholstery, but sure couldn’t tell anyone how to do it! I just say, put it back together exactly the opposite of how you took it apart.
A great help huh?
Keep up the good work! Projects are fun. I need a new one.
Um, why is uncovered chair looking out the window? Is it jealous that covered chair gets to go out and play?
That is SO cool April….hummm I had been thinking what to do with my 10 years old coffee table… getting ideas!
Way to go girls! That’s how I go at all of my projects – no experience, it’s just that I never have the money to hire it done. I love the challenge & knowing that I did it myself. Ellen, you are doing a great job on your furniture! Can’t wait to come out & see it!
I have a few projects waiting out in my she, all they need is a little love and a bit of paint. Thanks for your inspiration, maybe now I might get off my butt and do something about it!
Can I borrow your daughter for a couple of days please? She did a wonderful paint job on that chair!! I will leave the porch light on, ok!
I think the chair looks great. I wish I had the attitude that I could do anything.
Does the chair project require sewing? I can’t sew a lick – I can glue and staple and tape with the best of them. I hope there’s no sewing.
I’ve been waiting to find some parsons chairs for my dining room that I like and can afford, chairs can get pretty pricey… sooooooo if there’s no sewing I might have another option. We have a set of 3 chairs (does 3 chairs even make a set?) in there now that I picked up at a consignment shop and we have a family of 4 (I really like those 3 chairs – they’re cute) so we don’t use the dining room like we should. They’re wood with upholstered seats that I redid but I don’t see me carving out a 4th to match. So if I find some parson’s chairs that I could redo…
Also (please forgive my rambling), I’m a project-starter-not-always-finisher girl too, but look at it this way… at least you’re starting them. I have so many smart, capable friends that wander around doubting their abilities and never start or do anything. They stand around on the sidelines watching everyone else – that’s for the birds. I’ll choose to be a starter-not-always-finisher any day over that.
congratulations! I’m jealous…I have a sad little gallery of unfinished chair projects cluttering my home office, you’ve inspired me to revisit them. Love how clean and crisp your wooden chair looks now — did you redo the wicker (is it wicker) seat? Looks brand new.
Can I borrow your daughter?
This is how most of my projects go; buy the old furniture at garage sale or auction. Then I clean the item up so we can start working on it. Then it either sits in the middle of the floor until I get tired of walking around it or we just start using it with out rhe refinish job. Example, befire we got married I got a 6ft french provencial diamond tuffted couch from someone who wanted to throw it away, cleaned it up, got married used it for two years until we moved and then instead of moving it had someone pick it up upholter it and deliver to new house. If I moved more often maybe all my projects would get done.
You rock getting all those things done.
Have a great weekend.
So when we start projects we are supposed to know what we are doing????? How lame is that? And I personally am impressed that the chair(s) are being so quickly recovered because I’m afraid I’ve had large items to be restored in my possession for quite some time and never did a thing about it!
Your daughter did an awesome job on her painting. And the paisley chair is awesome!
AND I’m wondering about those chairs you were re-caning/rag-tieing??
Your projects look like they are going well! I am impressed with your daughter’s initiative and skill! She is going to have a future “rescuting” furniture!
Amy J – could you use a bench along the 4th side of your table? If you have little ones sometimes a bench is a nice option because you can sit 2 little ones on one side of the table. And you could still use the 3 chairs that you like, and you could probably get a bench and cover it to match your other chairs. Just an idea.
It’s round. Good thought though. We do pull the piano bench up when we need to. A few weeks back we had 7 kids around the table. They all had room for their plates and had fun too! I would eventually like to get a long table w/ a leaf so the bench idea is something to definitely keep in mind.
Here’s the amazing thing about your childhood chair: the rush seat is in perfect condition, it looks like to me!
That’s a miracle.
Adorable! You are amazing. (Ellen, too!)
Wow! They look great!! Wanna come to my house and get some things done? Safety in numbers, right?! : )
April, very recently I saw a blog post about a homemade pot rack. If I was really nice I would google it for you, but it’s late and I need to get to bed. But they had simply cleaned up an old wooden ladder, added hooks to it, and hung it horizontally on the kitchen ceiling. That would work for your farmhouse!
Can you come to upstate NY and teach me how to sand and prep and prime and paint? Please? Pretty please? I might have a potrack lying around somewhere…