an old shoe and a new chair.
With our economy sputtering about, I thought I would give you one piece of sound financial advice. Ready? Never ever ever ever ever buy those chairs with rush seats. Squirming knees and bottoms, and reed-covered chairs DO NOT MIX.
All day long our floors were scattered with bits of straw falling from the seats. Which always gave me the urge to make chili and turn on some fiddling music. I checked with Pottery Barn to see if they sold seat replacements, but of course they didn't. And I wasn't about to buy eight new chairs, especially when we had only had these for three years.
So one Saturday Jimmy and I decided we were tired of living in a barnyard and tackled recovering those irritating chairs.
Instructions:
1. Unscrew old seat base from chair.
2. Look in horror at all the crumbs and spillage that have accumulated over three years under the seat. Give chair a thorough cleaning.
3. Place old seat base onto a piece of MDF, trace around it, and cut out with some sort of saw (Jimmy handled this part)
4. Place new MDF seat base on top of some 1.5 inch foam, trace around it and cut out.
5. Stack new MDF seat base with the foam piece on top.
6. Place fabric on top of foam, stretch it (pull it extrememly tight) over all the sides and staple it to the bottom of the MDF. Use a gazillion staples. You'll need two people for this part. (One to pull fabric tight and one to staple.)
7. Our new seats fit so snugly into the chair that we haven't screwed them back into the chair frame. So if you want, screw the new seats back onto the chair frame.
We have eight chairs so it took us awhile to fully complete the project. But I love the new chairs and I really love not having to sweep my floors three times a day.
And here is one of them, pictured with Andy's all-star-wearing foot. (Which incidentally is a shoe worth buying, as these have been passed around this family for five years now.) Unlike those waste-of-money reed seats. Grrr.
All day long our floors were scattered with bits of straw falling from the seats. Which always gave me the urge to make chili and turn on some fiddling music. I checked with Pottery Barn to see if they sold seat replacements, but of course they didn't. And I wasn't about to buy eight new chairs, especially when we had only had these for three years.
So one Saturday Jimmy and I decided we were tired of living in a barnyard and tackled recovering those irritating chairs.
Instructions:
1. Unscrew old seat base from chair.
2. Look in horror at all the crumbs and spillage that have accumulated over three years under the seat. Give chair a thorough cleaning.
3. Place old seat base onto a piece of MDF, trace around it, and cut out with some sort of saw (Jimmy handled this part)
4. Place new MDF seat base on top of some 1.5 inch foam, trace around it and cut out.
5. Stack new MDF seat base with the foam piece on top.
6. Place fabric on top of foam, stretch it (pull it extrememly tight) over all the sides and staple it to the bottom of the MDF. Use a gazillion staples. You'll need two people for this part. (One to pull fabric tight and one to staple.)
7. Our new seats fit so snugly into the chair that we haven't screwed them back into the chair frame. So if you want, screw the new seats back onto the chair frame.
We have eight chairs so it took us awhile to fully complete the project. But I love the new chairs and I really love not having to sweep my floors three times a day.
And here is one of them, pictured with Andy's all-star-wearing foot. (Which incidentally is a shoe worth buying, as these have been passed around this family for five years now.) Unlike those waste-of-money reed seats. Grrr.
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