February 21, 2010

Antique Chairs...Revamped!



...
II love giving antiques new life with fresh n' modern updates!
...
I found this fun fabric from Garden Ridge and was instantly inspired to recover two century old antique chairs.


Here's the "before" picuture...as you can see intervention is clearly needed here! The dark wood is still in good condition, but the leather seating...once beautiful, is falling apart.



 For padding a hundred years ago, they evidently used straw or hay for cushion. The Hubby and I hated to cut this original leather seat, but this stuffing had to come out!



 Here I've got my supplies lined up...batting, fabric, scissors, staple gun, this project is super fun and easy and takes from start to finish just a couple of hours!



 First, I cut the batting and used a staple gun to attach the batting to the bare wood seat.



 Next, I generously cut the fabric and used staples again to tightly attach the fabric to the seat. These corners can be tricky, so I used pleats to secure the extra fabric.


And here they are finished! I love this fun, modern fabric combined with these dark, traditional antique chairs!




So a fun fabric find, inspires a fresh modern update to a century old set of antique chairs...I love giving old things new life! 

 I'm linkin' this fun Antique revamp to all my favorite days:



26 comments:

Jenn said...

Gorgeous Fabric...great chairs!
Is that company online? The only place I have locally for fabric is Hobby Lobby!

Becky@Beyond The Picket Fence said...

Beautiful--the wood on those is really pretty (and I am a paint the wood kind of girl)!

Allison Shops said...

The fabric you selected looks wonderful with your chairs. Great job!

I hope you'll come see my home featured this week on AtticMag. I'm a bit of a chair-aholic, as you may be able to tell (check out the one in great room, near FP, that needs to be recovered).
Allison

HeartsMakeFamilies said...

Hey just stopping by to say Hi from Friday Follow!

Happy Follow Friday!

Tami
www.heartsmakefamilies.com

Miki said...

Great contrast of the modern, funky fabric to the traditional chairs! You made it look easy - I am inspired to try this vs. avoiding this kind of makeover in the future. Miki

Enchanted Rose Studio said...

Fabulous transformation! I love the fabric! Beautiful job!

Thanks for the tutorial!

Cheers!
Tina

Kathy @ Creative Home Expressions said...

I love redoing chairs like this! Easy and quick compared to slipcovers or reupholstery. Funny about the hay ~ I guess they used what they had. I imagine it wasn't very comfortable to sit on though! Nice job, Jane!

Upstatemomof3 said...

That is really cool - my mom has this chair that my grandmother was going to reupholster for her. Unfortunately my grandmother died before she could do it and my mom does not know how.

marty (A Stroll Thru Life) said...

Great fabric. The chairs look stunning. Hugs, Marty

slommler said...

Gorgeous!! And so well done! Great find!!
Hugs
SueAnn

Amanda @ Serenity Now said...

Wonderful, Jane! I love happy endings like that. ;) Nice fabric!

Kaysi said...

I love this! It is so cute and the colors are awesome

FrouFrouBritches said...

GORGEOUS! I bet they're a lot more comfortable too!

Michelle K said...

I love that fabric! I live in the Dallas area and have a Garden Ridge nearby. Was the fabric a recent purchase? It would be perfect for recovering my dinging chairs! Thanks for sharing your redo.

Charlotte said...

Very cute! Where did you get the chairs to begin with?

Lei said...

That fabric is fabulous! Looks grat on the chairs and in your home. Good call!e

Becolorful said...

What a fun fabric. I think mixing old and contemporary, the unexpected element is such a great look. Nice work

Candace@craftysisters-nc said...

I really like the fabric and it goes nicely with the chairs.

Adrianna said...

That is a great deal on your fabric. You did a fab job on your chairs! I love the chest (what I can see of it) the chairs are sitting next to also.

Ronnie said...

Beautiful job! Nice lesson too. That was some pretty, icky, straw, hairy stuff inside the old seats!

fawnda said...

Beautiful! I love the fabric!

Becky@Beyond The Picket Fence said...

Jane, thanks so much for linking up, but I can't get your link from my site to work. Let me know if you can or relink it and I will get rid of your other link. Thanks!

Denise Marie said...

girl, I love that fab at Garden Ridge. I just saw it a week or 2 ago.

Kim said...

Very nice transformation!

Lori said...

The chairs turned out great. I love the fabric you picked.

Thanks for joining Get your Craft on Thurs. Please join me next week for another great party.

Lori

Asian Antiquities said...

Nice transformation you did in that chair!! It looks fabulous! Thanks for sharing some tips.