Office Chair Makeover

I have a desk that I absolutely LOVE. It's solid wood, and probably is somewhere around 70 years old. I'm guessing it is from the 40's. It's HUGE! 3' x 5'. I'd love to have it in the craft room, but there's no way it's going up my stairs. That leaves me with having it in my Living Room. I really do love my house. It's also from the 40's ;) (1942) so the piece works well in the house, but I swear, this house is really crappy for space planning. Radiators. Sigh.

Having the desk in my Living Room means I have a desk chair in my living room. My beloved Fat Cat did a number on the back of the chair. I had plenty of fabric left over from my curtains, so I decided to give the chair a makeover, rather than throw it away. It was perfectly functional, just really, REALLY ugly. Black Cat decided to photo bomb :).

  

That wonderful black slip cover on the back rest, is left over from when I had the desk in my dining room. I had left over fabric from my black curtains, and whipped the slip cover up before a big party. I really do hate having ugly things in the house. It's embarrassing. When you remove the slip cover, this is what you see. Lovely, hmmm?

 

 

Let the adventure begin! I used a screwdriver and took the chair apart. I took the back rest off first, then turned the chair on its side to remove the seat.

 

 

 I left the structure of the chair in the living room, and just took the backrest and seat into the craft room to work on. No point in bringing everything upstairs.

I had known for ages that I wanted a "spicey" feel to my first floor. I have removed a wall between my dining room and kitchen, and have the outside wall painted red. I call it whore house red. Hehe. I found two remnants of this burnt orange dupioni silk at Jo Ann's YEARS ago. It really was my inspiration piece for the living room, and now finally it's getting used. I thought that would be just enough to use on this chair.

I used the larger piece for the bottom of the chair. I thought to myself, I'm going to be sitting on this part. Maybe I don't want to make this permanent, So I went with a fitted slip cover.

 

I laid the seat over the fabric, and kind of pulled up the sides so I would know where to cut. I really just pulled the corners and snipped the extra fabric away. It gave me nice rounded corners. I sewed a pocket to hold some elastic.

I have a spool of elastic that I purchased at a closeout fabric and accessories outlet store. A spool of a thousand or so feet cost me what one package of three yards would cost at Jo Ann's. I think this was probably meant for ladies panties or something like that, because of the weird edge on one side. What do you think?

 

When you're sewing the pocket for your elastic, make sure you leave an area of open seam so you can thread your elastic through it (hard to see). Do you know the secret to threading a drawstring through? Stick a safety pin on the end. It gives you something to grab onto while you've got the elastic in the pocket you've created on your fabric edge.

 

 Easy-peasy! It only took me two minutes to get the elastic all the way through. Of course, I had to stretch it out before I could get it over the seat.

 

I decided to leave the safety pin on, rather than hand sewing the elastic together. It just seemed to work better for me. When I attached the chair seat to the roller base, I just tucked the elastic up under the hem.

 

I think it looks pretty darn nice.

 

Yikes. This isn't so nice to look at. We're moving on to the back rest, and that is by far MUCH more beat up than the seat was. Fat Cat is lucky he was so lovable. I trimmed the threads off. I didn't want the fluff to show through the new fabric. Black Cat isn't big enough to use the back rest to scratch on. She likes to use my box spring instead. :/

 

OMG! What do we have here? A piece of his nail. Before you tell me, this is my fault, because I don't clip their nails. Yeah. I had two people that work at Pet Smart (friends) over to the house for a card game this past week. It took one sitting on Black Cat, while the other one clipped. She pulled them from one side of the room to the other, and screamed the whole time. They got three paws, and only part of the fourth. She was PISSED. I can't stand to hear her scream like that. It hurts ME to hear her so upset. She was only pissed at them though. She still loved on me, and cuddled with me after they left. Anytime I get the chance I GLADLY pay to have them clipped for me. There is NO way I'd be able to do it by myself.

Here's that second piece of fabric. SO close, but I didn't have enough to do the back rest. Good thing I have left over curtain fabric.

 

Oh Glue Gun, how I love thee!

I laid the back rest on the curtain fabric, and just hot glued the crap out of it. I then cut off the extra fabric.

 

I took another piece of the curtain fabric, and matched up the stripes.

 

Slowly but surely, I hot glued the crap out of that too! You can see the pucker line in the second picture, if you look close enough.

 

I then trimmed the excess fabric away. Not too shabby, but, definitely not a finished look.

Remember in one of my recent posts, I talked about my friends Mom passing away, and they offered my all her crafting materials? This trim was included in that. It's actually a few different kinds of trim all wrapped around one bolt. Not only do I have this cream color, but I have the same types of trim in burgundy!

 

I bet you can't guess how I attached the trim. Go 'head. Guess. Hot Glue? You got it! Oh, yeah. Don't forget to poke your holes for the back rest to attach to the metal structure. I just felt for them, then stuck my scissors in and wiggled them around, to make the hole. It worked pretty well.

 

 I *thought* I lined it up seam of the trim (cut on the diagonal in the picture below) to sit behind the metal frame. Silly me didn't pay attention to the fact the frame doesn't come directly down from where the screws attach the backrest. Good thing I did such a good job hiding the seam. Not that I think anyone is going to get up on my chair to look for it. I still want it to be invisible. I'm not completely in love with the trim job, but it definitely hides the fact that the fabric is cut beneath it. Really, if I had done a better job of cutting the excess fabric, I would have been able to make the trim nicer. My own worst critic, I know.

 

So there you have it. My office chair makeover. Back, and front. I may eventually take it back apart and spray paint the frame black, or maybe even brown to match the dark wood I have in the room. I'm okay with the grey for now.

 

Remember the burnt orange being my inspiration fabric for the room? Here's another piece I'm using for inspiration. It's a fleece/plushy throw I got at Walmart 2 years ago. I have off white/creamy walls, and we all know how much I loathe painting, so they're going to stay this nice and neutral color, and we'll just do some pops of color, from this piece. The red pulls in the "whore house red" I have in the adjacent rooms.

Well what happened here? I have an extra screw? Yeah. I know exactly where the screw goes, and I tried for about 20 minutes, and couldn't get ANY of the screws to thread into that hole. The chair felt plenty secure without it, so I just put the screw into the desk. I'll try again at a later date.

Here's the chair, back in it's home. MUCH better, don'tcha think?

There you have it. My office chair makeover. Have you tackled a project like this? Do you have a chair that needs a facelift? Go for it! This project, cost me, at the most $10, and that's estimating the trim being $5, if I had to pay for all the materials when I did the project. Because I already had all the materials, the project day cost was $0.

STAYcation Update #2

August 12
Not much going on today. Went to the movies with Mom. She points out the neighbor has FINALLY moved a vehicle that has been straddling the property line, and not moved for over 2 years. PRAISE JESUS!

I think I'll charge up the battery. I pop the hood and a single wasp flies out. Hmmm....that's odd. I don't pay it much mind and proceed to stick my hand in and open up the hood. Yeah. This is what I find.

WTF! And...oh hey, F safety...lemme get a pic of this. It's about 4:30 pm when I discovered this. I called 2 places. Only 1 of them bothered to call back.

I have some projects that didn't make it on the original list. Digitizing two VHS tapes are on that list. A while back, I got a hold of a working VCR, and I went through all my blank tapes to make sure nothing was on them, that I wanted to keep. The only two things that made the cut were my skydiving video and a tape my friend made me while he was in Hong Kong.

At the beginning of the year, I had ordered some sort of device off eBay to digitize these two video's. I just now got around to doing it...but turns out...I couldn't figure out how to use the darn thing! So, I whipped out my fancy camera and tripod, and just taped my TV screen. The tapes were pretty crappy quality anyway, so I'm not really missing much by doing it this way.

I transferred the skydiving video and called it a night.

August 13
I woke up at 10. I'm getting used to this. ;) My wasp remover was scheduled to appear somewhere between 11 and 1. He called at about 11:20 and said he would arrive at noon, and surprisingly he did. In the meantime I managed to transfer the other tape. He suited up and took care of bidness. $200 well spent, TYVM!

Have I told you how much I hate painting? I do. I loathe it. Sigh. Unlike wasps...painting isn't something I will pay someone else to do. I had a bit of mildew I cleaned up then, I painted Kilz on the closet in the guest room. I also did *most* of the wall in the basement living room. It was too dark down there at night to see what I was painting...since I was painting white...onto an already white wall. Still need to work on the living room carpet.

 

 

I also took a stab at the shower stall. It's going to need some more work.

 

I pulled everything out from under the stairs, and then put a bit of it back in, along with some new stuff...But neglected to take a picture, and am too lazy to get out of bed to take one right now. :/

 

In the process of moving everything around, I decided, there was still too much random crap in the basement, I needed to purge a bit more...

August 14
Today started off with a crap-ton of errands.

• Take some completed projects to work (I only work 3 miles from my house)
• Return Priority Mail boxes to USPS
• Drop JunkStuff off to the local Thrift Store
• Target-Returns
• Walmart-Buy more carpet cleaner, 3 curtain rods, cat food
• Harbor Freight-Buy car battery charger, tin snips

My errands took FOUR HOURS! My gosh. I came home, and had lunch, then got back to work. Back into the darn basement. I'm kind of sick of being down there by now, and really want to work on my craft room projects, but they'll have to wait till tomorrow.

Paint is dry in the closet, so I load that up shelves, with my home improvement items, along with the rest of the paint that I found under the stairs. I "kinda" remembered I had put it there, and totally forgot about it at the same time. You ever have those moments?

I finished up the Kilz on the living room wall, and anxiously stuck the toy chest (you were wondering what that was, right? My Daddy made it for me when I was little.) back into the corner, along with all the crap that I had in the middle of the room. I'm being super nice, and letting my BFF store some stuff she's buying for when she moves in with her BF. Right now, I'd prefer not to have it in the house, since I'm tryna put crap together, but all in all, I'm happy to be able to help her out. Once her stuff is gone, my Christmas Stuff will go in the toy chest. Like my Christmas Container? I got four of them at Rite-Aid, after Christmas a few years ago. They were only $1.25 each, on clearance. YAY!

That stuff on top. That's the rest of the stuff that needs to find a home in the craft room. I still need to sell a bunch of the stuff I finished up, on eBay, so I can have room for the raw materials. About 80% of what you're looking at here is fabric. I think I have a problem. I inherited it (the problem, not the fabric) from my Mom. She had a huge stash of fabric when I was little. Not quite sure what she's done with it. Below is even MORE fabric! Rolls of upholstery and drapery fabric. Sigh. Bad thing is...I stopped buying fabric about 4 years ago. Hopefully the dedicated sewing space will help me whip up all kinds of great creations in no time!

At this point, I'm tired as a MoFo, and call it quits down there for the night. My feet were killing me. I thought I would chill on my nice comfy bed, and list my creations on eBay. I got as far as taking all the pictures, and that was it.

August 15
I woke up at 10 again. Oh it feels so good to sleep until my body tells me to wake up. I'm going to hate getting up for work next week :(.

I cleared the rest of the room, had lunch and got to taping. I cut in, and thought, "Wow. That's pretty f'n hideous.", but I kept at it. I painted with the roller and thought, "I REALLY  don't want to have to paint over this." It was impossible to get a good picture of the color. I swear, it's not as bad as it looks.

 

Painting took forever, but I pushed through and got it done. I then, despite the fact my feet were killing me, shampoo'd the rest of the carpet in the guest room.

Three little paragraph's really doesn't reflect the amount of work that occurred today :/

Okay, we're all caught up as of today . So, where does that leave us with the list?

• Re-hang stapled ceiling tiles that were removed when my water supply lines were replaced
• Clean Carpet Half way there. Guest room is  
• Replace Vinyl floor in Bathroom and Laundry Area Not gonna happen. I didn't order the flooring yet.
• Kilz 1 living room wall and bedroom closet
• Paint entire basement F that! Guest room is painted. That's enough!
• Make curtains for bedroom
• Clean shower stall Half way there
• Clean behind laundry area
• Set up bed
• Move remainder of fabric into craft room
• Move eBay shipping materials to craft room I took 4 boxes of priority mail boxes back to the USPS
• Move building materials to closet They're in there, but I think I'm going to end up moving them under the stairs
• Put mirror on Vanity
• Hang Shelves

Not doing so great on the craft room, but all the major basement crap is out of the way, so I think I'll be able to cross a lot of these things off the list, in the 3 days I have left. Say a prayer!

• Create a dry erase/tack board
• Finish all half done ebay sewing projects They aren't all done, but about 80% are as of today
• Paint and hang picture frames
• Create Magnetic Jewelry Finding Board
• Goo-Gone on containers for jewelry findings
• Create vision board
• Cover tall bookcase in black and white wrapping paper
• Create Labels for clear drawers
• Fabric wrap canisters (Thanks Barbara!)
• Organize fabric Stash
• Use up fleece stash 
• List fleece creations on eBay
• Hang curtain
• Touch up wall paint
• Cover chair cushion   

STAYcation Update #1

OMG...my feet HURT. I've been on them pretty much ALL day. Ok. That's out of the way. Let me back up a bit. My staycation started on Friday August 9th. My BFF took me out for my (early) birthday. After work we had dinner and drinks in the big city. I was in such a funk earlier in the day, and she and her BF really cheered me up. So yeah, nothing on the to-do list got done, but really, I wouldn't have done anything if I had stayed home, so yay for having some fun.

August 10
I was up early. I threw a load of laundry in, had breakfast, and started my day. I had been looking online for a zebra print stencil, and JoAnn's only had them online. I really didn't want to wait for it, since, I had purchased some small things I wanted to stencil, and list on eBay or Etsy, so I kept looking. I hear everyone all over the interwebz getting great things at Hobby Lobby, so I checked there for my stencil. BINGO! They also had them, and they sold them in their stores, so I wouldn't have to order it. Woot Woot!

Thankfully there's a Hobby Lobby about 15 minutes from me, and somehow I have never been to it. What? NEVER! Blasphemy, right? I'm such a JoAnn's girl it's gross. Somehow I managed to get out of the store with spending just under $30. Pretty good for me and a craft store. BFF called while I was in the store and I told her "I have to keep telling myself, 'Just because it's on sale doesn't mean I have to buy it'." She isn't a crafter, but thought this was funny anyway.

As I was on the phone with her, another friend called to firm up plans for our annual birthday dinner and a movie. We decided to see "We're the Miller's", later in the day. I left the store before I could purchase anything else, and treated myself to Boston Market for lunch. I don't like eating at restaurants by myself, so I took lunch home, and ate it there. I relaxed for a bit, then hopped in the shower to get ready for the evening. My friend was running late with their errands, and I wasn't quite sure what time we were actually going to me, so I headed out and went to the JoAnn's close to their house, to make good use of my time, and expiring coupons ;).

Can I tell you a secret? I got three pieces of fabric. They only put two on the ticket, and the cashier just stuck the pile of fabric in the bag without seeing how many pieces. Whoopsie. Thanks for the birthday present JoAnn!

Dinner was nice, and the movie. OMFG, it was so funny my cheeks hurt.

August 11
Birthday. Felt like being lazy. Had breakfast, finally made an Etsy account, and then watched TV until about 5. Then I got a burst of energy and started sewing! Yay! Remember that "use up fleece" on my to-do list? I made a bunch of baby blankets. What do you think?

These first two were already done and delivered. They are both for cousin's kids. Two cousins actually. I love these princess frogs :)

   

Did you know I have a famous cousin? We'll not quite. One of my cousins is a professional driver, for a long running car show. It took me forever to find the right fabric to make his son's blanket. I thought this was great. I was tempted to buy some race car fleece I found at JoAnn's, but held really lucked out when I found this racing flag flannel.

 

This next one is vintage fabric. How old does something have to be before it can be called vintage? This is flannel with a pattern of safety pins and baby foot prints. My friends's Mom passed away. They lived down the street from me, and right next to each other. Her Mom had a basement FULL of craft stuff. The step father didn't want the stuff taking up room, and the friend knew I was crafty, so I got to take ALL of it. She asked me to make something for her and her two girls with something I found in the bins. No joke, probably 15 Rubbermaid bins FULL of craft supplies. LOTS of fabric and yarn. I took probably 8 bins of yarn to the local nursing home. There was no way I'd be able to use all of it in my lifetime. I love to crochet, and have a habit of doing it for hours on end, and OMG, my hand hurts just thinking about it. So anyway, this fabric was in one of the bins.

 

This next one is a combination of a thrift store find and an "OMG that's so cute, I have to buy it" fabric. The pink field with white hearts, as you can see, the price was $2.45.

In it's former life, it was a full size sheet. This is actually the second time I've used it in a baby blanket. I'm on a mission to use up the vast majority of my fabric stash, remember? I thought it worked really well with the heart & cross bones (what would you call this?)
 

 

I actually had enough of this fabric to make two blankets. I only took a picture of one of them though. The second one is just paired with a pink flannel. Fairy Princesses. So cute!

This purple stars fabric is pieced together to make it work with the remaining fairy princess fabric. I have this as my curtain fabric in my second floor bathroom, and window at the top of my stairs. I must have bought a crap load of it, because I remember making curtains for a boyfriends RV.

 

Four baby blankets made on my b-day, and I really felt productive. Woohoo! Finally, right? So, what do you think of the blankets? I'm considering listing them on my newly created Etsy account. Do any of you sell baby blankets? How should I word my disclaimer? Any tips for me?