everything is just chair-y

Remember this?

...which became this?

Well, I took a couple evenings and made it into this:


(Yep, I'm still uploading pictures from my camera phone.)

Let me just say, I feel triumphant!! I have had this charcoal gray felt in my possession for nearly a year, and it's been just sitting there, taunting me. The last time I reupholstered the chair I used that brown/gold grandma-style floral jacquard. It was ugly and DIRECTIONAL, which made for quite a challenge. The idea was that I rip off the original fabric to use as a pattern for my pieces. I think the first project was a month in the making; I whipped this baby out in two evenings. Not having to pry out hundreds of staples and not having a directional fabric changed the turn-around time dramatically. It was actually invigorating to see the chair come together the way it did.

I also learned which portions could be fitted as slip-covers first and then stapled into place, rather than trying to stable each individual piece on. My favorite part was actually the most time consuming, but came out great: the detail stitching on the foot rest part (sorry it's hard to tell in the picture I uploaded). I ended up having a lot of scraps that weren't big enough to cover any single piece of the chair, but cut into strips and sewn into "stripes" on the foot rest ended up being just the way to use them. I may even have enough left over to do my second chair the same way. Really, I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out.

Here's the question of the hour: Do I spray paint the legs a glossy black, or just leave them with the dark wood stain? Your thoughts?