DIY Metal Chair Makeover

Hello cyber-world!

It's been far too long since my last visit.  *Shoutout to Chanel and Chara* I appreciate my sisters for doing their best to breathe life back into this blog, and I am going to try to do the same.

All I'll say is that it has been a crazy time in my life.  Our family has moved from Nevada to Indiana, and we're still settling in...I have almost nothing hung on the walls of my house, and each room has it's own stack (or two) of boxes left to unpack.  I have always been a West Coast girl, so adjusting to the weather & humidity here is still a little difficult for me.  But, despite all the challenges that this move has caused, I believe it has been, and will be, a good thing for our family.  One of the few constants in life is change.  All we can do is buckle up, say a prayer, and enjoy the ride!

I did this DIY a little while ago, but I just never made post about it.  So here goes!

Have you ever bought something because 1) it was really cheap, and 2) you could see potential for something awesome with a small, easy makeover, but then it just sat in your house looking sad and unfinished for years?  That's what had happened to me.

I bought these chairs off of a friend that was selling them for really cheap.  My vision for them over the years has changed slightly (as I have found that my decorating style has evolved over the past few years), but I finally found some fabric at Wal-Mart on clearance that I was ABSOLUTELY in love with!  So I brought it home, and decided the time had come to tear the chairs apart!

Luckily, the paint on my chairs wasn't peeling off like crazy.  I did not feel the need to sand it or remove the previous paint in any way (mostly because I'm lazy, but also because I was so excited to get started that I was ready to just jump right in).  I broke it down, bought some spray paint, and went straight to work!

While I patiently impatiently waited for each coat to dry, I would work on the cushions.

 This is the old fabric (on the left) next to the new fabric (on the right).

 

This is how I tackled this part of the project:

 

Step 1: Lay my old cushion (with the old fabric still on, because I'm not cool like my sister) on the new fabric, and cut out a rough square.  Pull the sides up and over to make sure it covers everything before you cut.

 

Step 2: Pull gently on the sides and start stapling them down on the backside.  You don't want to pull it too tight, or you'll have weird dips in your cushion on the other side.  So pull gently, but try to get it snug.

Step 3: The corners...some people have a specific strategy when it comes to their corners.  I just folded a little, and stapled it in place, and folded some more, and stapled in place. In the end, my corners looked just fine!

Step 4: Reduce some of the bulk around the corners.  All you have to do is take a pair of scissors and cut those little flags hanging off of each corner until it looks nice to you.

TA DA!

Step 5: This is the really fun part!  Once you have followed all the directions on your package of spray paint/clear coat (or...gotten so fed up with it that you settle for no clear coat because you just can't wait to finish...) you can put it all together!

Voila!  I was so happy with how these turned out.  I've got the bug now!  I want to recover every piece of furniture in my house!

Just too cute to pass up!

And don't they just look great with my newly acquired piece of furniture? (Thanks to my mother-in-law!  How did she know I would love it so much? <3)

I hope everyone has a happy Monday!

If you see a project, recipe, kids activity, or life hack that you'd like us to try, let us know!