Chair Makeovers

So after wasting a few hours looking at pictures on Better After: http://betterafter.blogspot.com/ (some day I'll learn how to do these links better) I decided to put up two of my recent chair makeovers. Now I say my but I mean our since Brian did half the work. So our first little project was a rocking chair for the nursery. We found this chair on Craigslist and paid $35 for it which was $30 too much, but we drove like an hour in a blizzard to go see it, so we paid the $35.

Before:

During:

After:

 

I love the way this chair turned out, very sweet and simple, and very comfortable!

The next project we undertook was a $1 garage sale find. I'd been thinking that I wanted to try my hand at some true upholstering, and how better to learn than with a $1 chair that reeked of old cat lady and was covered in spiders? There probably is a better way, but this way is very affordable, and where's the fun if there isn't a little cat urine mixed in the process?

Before:

During:

After:

Pretty cute, but I think if I did this chair over again I'd pick a different fabric. It's nice and all, but a little dull. (Also, just so you know we got it to stop smelling of cat pee once the old fabric came off. Yay!).

For you naysayers out there who think "Oh I could never upholster" uh, if I can, you can. All you need is a flat head screwdriver and pliers to remove the staples, cute new fabric, a sewing machine, and a heavy duty-ish stapler from any craft store. Tip: As you take the chair apart write on a sticky note where the piece goes on the chair and in what order you took it off in and pin it to that piece of fabric. Then you'll have patterns for all of the pieces you need to cut and when you start reassembling it, just do so in the reverse order you took the pieces off!  Now go forth and upholster!