you can teach an old chair new tricks

So back in February (oh my - didn't realize it was that long ago!), I told you that I had a plan to recover a chair. The chair had been in my grandma's house and was purchased in the late 80s/early 90s. It's not an antique but I definitely remember its place in her house.
I had a crazy plan to recover it myself. I'm not an upholsterer by any means, but I figured it couldn't be that hard. Right? As it turns out, it wasn't that bad. My grand plan was originally to rip off all the fabric and get down to the stuffing, but after I started ripping out staples I realized that 1) it took damn near forever and 2) I could probably just staple new fabric over the old and get away with it.

So that was my plan. I ended up finding a remnant of fun fabric at Joann Fabrics for about $12 and estimated that the piece I found would be big enough. And as luck would have it, it was! So here is the finished product:

Ta-da! I opted to keep the wood and not paint it. The fabric is stapled to the layer and frame underneath and then trimmed with dark brown gimp. Did you know that trim is called gimp in the upholstery world? Kind of a funny word. Geee-yimp. Yeah, it's funny. Here's the back of the chair - instead of stapling it (because the fabric is under the wood), I cut a piece of fabric to fit and just stuffed it in. In person, the wrinkles aren't noticeable. Plus it will face a wall anyway, most likely. Here is where the chair is now - in the entry way in front of my bizarre-o blue half wall. The blue is actually turquoise, and in person it's not so appalling. But I am at a loss as to what to put in this area. I can't really put a table and lamp because there's no outlet. I did put up my oil painting of fish that my mom gave me, but it's a little big for the space. The husband does not like the blue. Or the fish. I kind of don't either. I'm hoping that inspiration will come to me. Here's an action shot of glueing on the trim. Geee-yimp. Whatever. I bought mine on Ebay because it was cheaper than the fabric store.

And here's a close-up of the chair back. Though I'm obviously no expert, I'm pretty happy with the finished product. I like reusing old things. And I like spending less than $20 for a fun project!