A DIY Look That Feels Right At Last!

Phew! what a week! Things have been a little crazy around here but I was finally able to make a trip to SR Harris yesterday to get some upholstery fabric for my chair seats!  I had been going back and forth on what I wanted to do with them, but finally made a commitment!  Also, I gotta tell ya- I think I need to stay away from any chair redo/ reupholstery projects in the future because this all feels like déjà vu!  (see past example here) I always get stuck on the fabric selection part and then a simple project takes weeks, so silly! 

Anyway...  They are DONE!!!!  Check out the before & after action! 

I  was inspired by the accent chairs that my friend Katie had in her house along with a few chairs I found at West Elm that had a brown/black thing going on so I settled on doing a dark walnut color for the wood and distressed black faux leather for the seat.  

It was surprisingly easy to find exactly what I wanted in their giant warehouse o' fabric.  There it was right at the top of the stack!  I looked for real leather but it would have been really pricey and let's be real, I change my mind all the time and I'm sure someday I'll be messing with these again :)    The normal price for the fabric was $19.99/yd but with the typical 50% off you get on everything at SR Harris it was just $9.99/yd!  I purchased one and a half yards to cover both seat cushions so only had to spend $14.99, awesome deal right?!

Once I got home I jumped right into action!   I started by tearing off the old fabric from the seat cushions using some pliers to remove the old staples under the seat.  Needle nose pliers would have been better to use for this part but someone used them and I was unable to locate them (ahem, Alex).

After that I grabbed the faux leather fabric & cut out a piece for each cushion.  With the full 1.5 yards of fabric laid out, I placed the cushions in opposite corners of the fabric and cut around them leaving about 4 or 5 inches excess to wrap around to the underside of each seat cushion and staple in place.

Then it was time to grab the staple gun and finish these up!  That's when the unthinkable happened- no staples...

Ugh!  It was Friday night and I knew I had company joining me for dinner so I called it quits for the night and headed to Home Depot this morning to get more staples.  

With my gun reloaded and ready, I wrapped the fabric around the edges and to the back of the seat cushions to staple on place.  Here you sort of have to fold & fuss with it to get the fabric to wrap cleanly around the edges of the seat.

My last step was adding some nickel finish nailhead trim.  It is kind of tedious because you have to add them one by one with a hammer... Boy my fingers and knuckles hurt! 

Once that part was complete I placed each seat back on the chairs, wala! 

Heavens! They look way better right?!  I still don't know what the heck I was thinking with the blue/purple look.  At least now I think I've right my DIY done wrong :)  Next up is just some finishing touches in the sunroom then I'll share the rest of the look! 

What do you think of the new look on the chairs?

Have a wonderful weekend everybody!