The $5 Makeover

Tomorrow, it's back to school for me. Sigh. Today, instead of surfing all your pretty blogs, I re-did a favorite old chair of mine. And just in case you might have a similar chair tucked away because it's not quite fabulous enough...here's a brief tute on how easy you can complete a chair makeover in an afternoon!

Here's the before picture. Keep in mind, this little chair has already suffered through one of my makeovers, but I'm frankly sick of the cheery yellow.


and here's the seat removed; see it has a stain and needed to be recovered anyway!


Usually these types of padded seat cushions have a thin wood base and are attached to the chair with screws. Just flip the chair over & unscrew it...the padded top will pull right off.

I removed the old home-dec fabric & lay it over my newly chosen fabric to cut out the right size piece (no pattern needed! yay!)


Next, I ironed on a slightly smaller piece of Pellon fusible batting to my fabric, because I chose a quilting cotton this time, not a home-dec fabric. This will give it a little body. Keep in mind I didn't remove any of the original foam or anything, I'm just covering right over the top of it.


(Now's the time all you upholstery purists should stop reading and skip to the bottom for the after picture. ) I lay the Pellon fused fabric over the padded seat and position it so the pattern is pretty & centered. Flip the padded top over & pull from opposite sides to get it even, taut & smooth. I used pins to hold for gluing. Uh, yup. I said the G word. Now, I also use a staple gun, but I'm telling you a glue gun works really well for this project!

I pull the corners over first before gluing the sides, so I can get a nice , smooth corner.


Then glue (or staple) the sides down. Remember, work from opposite sides and everything will stay nice and smooth. Here's the bottom after gluing all the sides.


Since this will never be seen, I'm leaving it the way it is. You could cover with a nice piece of felt or something if you wanted a finished seat bottom though. Here's the pretty seat all finished:


A can of Krylon in a new yummy aqua shade completes this pretty chair makeover!

a different angle of the seat


Parting shot...a fabulous vintage cushion I picked up while at the flea market this weekend):