Nesting = 'New' Dining Room Chairs

I took on an impromptu project this weekend - reupholstering the dining rooms chairs.


Yes, it was one of the items on my baby countdown to-do list, but I had pretty much accepted the fact that I wasn't going to get the dining room tackled before she came. I'm chalking it up to that whole nesting thing. With two weeks to go as of Saturday, I still have this urge to complete and perfect any project I can find the time to take on. 

Saturday morning came and I had errands to run anyway so I stopped at JoAnn Fabrics to take a peek at fabric. It must have been fate or just my lucky day because not only did I find gorgeous fabric, but it was the end of the bolster and just happened to be exactly how much fabric I needed to purchase. Weird, right? I took apart one of our old chairs and  brought the fabric in so I could measure the right amount for four chairs. 

Here is a close up of the fabric:

Isn't it beautiful? I fell in love immediately.

That's not even the best part. How much did it cost to buy fabric for 4 dining room chairs? 

Just under $7.00... TOTAL. I'm so proud of myself. 

The fabric was in the clearance section (I went straight there because I refuse to pay full price for almost anything). It only cost $6.00 per yard. It was the end of the bolster so I was able to get 1 yard and ten inches which happened to be exactly what I needed (actually a little bit more as I trimmed a few inches off). JoAnn gives you 50% off the end of the bolster after you take the last full yard so those 10 inches only cost $.83. 

$6.83 to reupholster 4 dining room chairs. Can't beat it.

For the past three years the dining room chairs have looked like this. 

 

The furniture set was given to us by my in-laws and my FIL volunteered to reupholster them once I chose a fabric. Our dining room walls were originally a bright green (painted by the previous homeowners) and I chose this fabric to match. See this post for a picture of how the dining room used to look.

I really loved the fabric for a while, but after I painted the dining room walls, the fabric seemed too dark for my lighter, brighter dining room.

$6.83 and about an hour's worth of work later, I now have this:

A side-by-side comparison of the old and new fabric.

I love it :)

I didn't take a picture of the full dining set because the other half of the room looks like this:

Believe it or not, this is after cleaning out the dining room so this looks ten times better than the room has looked for the past few months. So technically I can cross two items off my to-do list: reupholstering the chairs and de-cluttering the dining room. 


As for the bench, I removed the cushion with the paisley green fabric and plan to purchase some comfy, pretty pillows to dress it up. I snagged this IKEA blanket that used to be in the living room and just happens to match the new fabric. The pillow purchase will wait until we have the baby stuff out of the dining room once she is born.

I'm pretty proud of myself since this was my first time ever reupholstering a chair. I relied on a few tutorials I found online and followed what my FIL had done on the chairs before.


I will post a tutorial later this week for any of you who want to try. It was a lot easier than I thought.