Thrift store chair re-do and cute chair inspiration

One of my favorite things to do when my dad visits is hit the thrift stores to look for treasures together. He shares my love of junk and it's fun to spend time with him prowling the aisles of the thrift store or antique mall. On one such trip several years ago, we picked up this old oak chair.

My dad shares my weakness for old orphaned chairs, and what made this one particularly appealing was not the ugly paint job or scary upholstery fabric, but the pretty claw feet:

You can see the original price tag of $6.99 but if I remember correctly, it was purchased on 50% off day so it was only $3.50.

This chair sat in the garage until last summer, when I decided it would be the perfect project to work on while I was out supervising Maren, who loved to play in the front yard with the neighborhood kids. If I was going to be out there, I might as well have something productive to do, right? I managed to get most of it sanded, and that was where my good intentions petered out. In summer '09 I was pregnant with Porter and pretty soon the idea of hanging out in my south-facing garage in the afternoon in the hottest part of the summer didn't seem all that appealing anymore.

So the chair was abandoned again, halfway sanded and with the chair cushion removed, looking sadder than ever. And then this summer in a fit of productivity, I decided to have a go at it again. I wasn't pregnant, but still didn't want to hang out in my hot garage any more than necessary so I decided to go the lazy route and just paint the darn thing instead of sanding, stripping and refinishing. I'm fairly certain at the moment the first blast of black spray paint hit that oak, a chill ran down my poor dad's spine, and he didn't even know why.

It may have been the lazy way out, but I love that it's actually DONE. Well, not completely--I still need to attach the cushion to the chair but as long as nobody actually sits in it, that's not a problem.

The cushion was made from another thrifted item I've had hanging around for years:

I found this fab skirt a few years ago and although it was a child's size 12 and wouldn't fit Maren until about 2020, I grabbed it because I saw its potential. The skirt is red velveteen, with bands of black velvet ribbon and a really neat ruffled trim. I contemplated making it into a pair of pillow covers, but it worked out perfectly to cover the chair cushion. I simply cut off the waistband, split it at the side seams and removed the lining (which I actually reused for another project I'll share someday), and let out the bottom hem to make it easier to fit around the cushion. Plus I still have another panel to use, so I can still make that pillow cover someday!

Back in September when I visited Utah, we went to a craft fair and found a booth with the cutest upcycled chairs. My mom purchased one of the Halloween designs (they stuck to Halloween and Christmas only) and I thought it was so cute and clever that I wanted to show you.

The chair was likely a thrift or yard sale find, painted black. The cushion cover was made by sewing strips of patterned fabric (in this case, Halloween prints) together, and then it was recovered in the normal fashion (click on the photo to enlarge it if you'd like a larger view). It is a very simple design, but so cute! I love the idea of a red-painted chair for Christmas, with a cushion made of strips of vintage Christmas tablecloths.

The pillow on the chair was also from the same vendor. I think that it is made out of bleached, ironed drop cloths and painted with a freezer-paper stencil. The paint was a little bit glittery and it had the nice sharp edges you get from the adhesion of the freezer-paper to the fabric. This example is for Halloween of course, but you could do a Christmas version with a big red 25, and a drop cloth would give you enough fabric to do a bunch of cute pillows to give as gifts. It's probably not a surprise that with cute (and so reasonably priced) wares like this chair and pillow, that vendor's booth was hopping!