Recycling

Sometime early last year I discovered a chair at Salvation Army. It had a beautiful shape and, as I'd been looking for a chair anyway, I took it home for next to nothing. It was a little musty, so I Frebreezed it excessively. In the back of my head was the idea that I should really re-cover it. It doesn't show in the picture, but it was a non-descript greyish color and had several stains. Well, time flew by and I never got around to the chair.

Fast forward to now. This chair, being the only one in my room, is now the all-purpose seating option and getting a lot of use. Only it really wasn't all that comfy. Finally, I decided that while Eric was gone would be the perfect time to make the necessary mess of taking it apart. In addition, I unearthed some sturdy tapestry design fabric that I could use as my new material.

My dad generously identified and located the correct drill bit for taking the funny shaped screws out of the bottom so we could pop the chair seat off. (Yes, everything is piled on my bed. With a couple other projects going on across the house, open work space is at a premium.) Matthew loaned me his tool set (screw drivers and pliers to get the old staples out) and Dad showed me how to load the staple gun to put the new ones in. May I just say that staple guns are amazing?

I decided once everything was apart that the stuffing that was in there, in addition to being paltry, was also nasty. While on a trip to JoAnn's for indulgent stuffing, it occurred to me that the tapestry fabric I'd planned to use didn't go with anything I own and was unlikely to ever match anything I will buy in the future... so I perused the clearance fabric racks... Guess what I found?!

A bolt of cream colored damask- style fabric. For six bucks, I got the last yard and a half they had in the store. When I was done covering the chair, I had enough fabric left over to make two pillows. Continuing my recycling them, I re-covered one pillow I already had that didn't match anything either, and took the stuffing out of a battered old pillow that was on it's way out and reshaped it into a smaller shape that would compliment the chair and other pillow.

The picture isn't great (still working on that skill), but I'm very pleased with the results! Something fresh and lovely that cost almost nothing and made good use of my resources. Plus, the boost of spirits that comes when you successfully complete a project.

Maybe that will be enough to carry me through the next six projects waiting in the wings! Lol!