The inspiration: Angie and Jenny's DIY-ness and craftiness. Sarah and Nicole's color palettes of wonder.
The project: I found this old vanity chair on craig's list for $5. Many thanks to my friend, Carrie, who went with me to pick it up. It's got a chip on the top, but otherwise in great shape. I decided to paint it and reupholster it to make it fit the color scheme of my room. By the way, the green and gold are totally an accident. Those pillows used to be in the living room of the house we lived in senior year... and then somewhere along the line they ended up in my room and I liked it. Also, you may notice that this color scheme (aside from the green) basically holds up in the living room too... yeah... I probably need to branch out more. :)
Step 1: Get rid of nasty, stale-cigarette-scented upholstery and rid chair of former tenant: a spider that looked just enough like a brown recluse to make me freak out a little.
Step 2: Wash chair and sand former stain off. Yes, as you can see from the picture, I did this in the living room. Please don't tell my mother; she would not approve. But it was raining and I put newspaper down and we have a new vacuum and I wanted to watch Harry Potter while I was doing it. And let it be known that the wood itself even smelled like cigarette smoke. Gross.
Step 3: Paint. I swear spray paint was invented by a 3: convenient, efficient, gets the job done. 1 can of white primer + 15 minutes + 2 cans leather brown paint + 30 minutes = done. Granted it's not my prettiest paint job--I got a little too spray paint happy in places and it dripped a bit. But for my purposes, it looks pretty good. (Also, I did this outside in our parking lot... not in my living room. :) And I forgot to take pictures.)
Step 4: Reupholster Seat. Materials: chair seat, 1" upholstery foam, 1 yard polyester batting, 1 yard fabric, staple gun (thanks to Jeremy for letting me borrow his!), 1 Reese's peanut butter egg-trust me on this one.
I cut the upholstery foam to about an 1" larger than the seat backing on all sides; I'm using two squares here because I couldn't find a piece big enough to fit this chair without buying a whole roll. Then I cut the batting, also bigger than the seat about 4-5" on each side. Pulled tight, stapled, and trimmed excess. Did the same with the fabric. I found this coral-colored paisley fabric with bright green accents that I completely love. One yard of it cost more than I paid for the whole chair. Haha. Voila!
Step 5: Reattach the seat to the chair. Oddly enough this was probably the most challenging part--getting the screws back in the same holes in the chair.
Done! I'm pretty happy with it. Now, I just have to rearrange my room to accommodate it. :)
Total: chair $5 + Paint ~$10 + Fabric, Foam, Batting ~$15 = $30
