Two Tone Wing Back Chairs

These chair were a test of patience for sure. These were for a friend of mine and they were actually the first job I lined up to a paying customer. Fabric selection was tricky though, she knew what she wanted and had a really hard time finding it. 8 months and what felt like a million samples later she had found the perfect combination.

They started out as this blue/green velvet

They were in really great shape except some wear on the legs, check out the difference a little gel stain makes.

I only had one glove and it was really old so it broke when I put it on, my thumb ended up as a stain covered casualty but it was better than nothing.

Here are the finished chairs. And they're really lovely right? Very classy and understated...

Until you flip them around. I love the surprise of the pattern around the back.

These chairs were such a hit I think I have some similar ones coming soon.

Reclining Wing Back Chairs

Boy did this summer ever get away from me. I've done a ton of upholstery and an equal amount of fun summer playing which means I've done zero blogging. So you can expect an abundance of posts in the next couple days.

 These chairs I finished an embarrassingly long time ago (I started this blog post in May) but since they were for me I forgot to take a picture of the finished result.

So I recovered this awesome couch and then they wanted some wing back chairs to go with it so I started scouring Kijiji and I found these two reclining wing back chairs. They were free because a cat had scratched up the upholstery (couldn't be more perfect hey?). So I showed them to the client?? (ha, that sounds ridiculous :) and they didn't love them. They wanted the wings to be a little more substantial but I  just couldn't pass up free chairs so I went and got them anyway (or rather I sent Brad to go get them). The more I saw them the more I loved them and wanted them so I proposed that they buy my already upholstered grey chairs (they were going with grey anyway and it looks amazing with their couch) and I would keep the new ones. The upholstery was fine but I was excited to choose something perfect for me.

Cat scratches pictured below. They were actually pretty serious in a couple places, going all the way down to bare wood.

At one point in their decision making they decided maybe they should at least sit on the cat scratched chairs to help them decide. But I was so in love with them by this point I wouldn't let them have them anymore :)

Theses chairs were amazing to work with. They're La-Z-Boy's and the back is removable.

As I was taking out staples I discovered that I would need to unscrew the bottom portion as well. I was initially nervous but in the end it made the whole process so easy. Every piece could be upholstered on top my kitchen table meaning I didn't have to awkwardly sit on the floor.

I did one at a time with some different projects in between so they sat like this for a while. It makes a handy before and after though.

Here it is reclined.

I did eventually get around to the second chair though and now I have this beautiful set that I'm loving.

Updated Living Room

I love this room. It's definitely my space in the house and I can't seem to quit tinkering.

I used some leftover fabric from the ottoman to make a new pillow.

I like the herringbone on the grey fabric and the way it looks on the chair.

I also added this cute 3D star to my gallery wall. It was a maroon-y red before so naturally I painted it gold (I swear I'm calling it quits on the gold). I have two more pillows to make for the couch (only one of them includes gold) and then I'm not sure I can possibly do anything else to this space.

Emerald Ottoman Take 2

Anyone remember my DIY tufted ottoman? It was green and super cute, for about a week. I had used satin fabric because it was all I could find in the right colour and it turned out to be a terrible choice. It was water marked, didn't hold it's shape and the covered buttons kept popping off. In not very long it looked like this. Notice how the pleats are all messy.

I also just couldn't ever make myself love the square, straight legs. I ended up using a Pinterest image as inspiration and painted them to add interest (surprise, surprise I used gold paint). The fabric is a much better colour and I've been using it for about a month and it looks exactly the same as when I first covered it.

I also added a little more foam and deep tufted the ottoman, it's much closer to what I had initially imagined.

Here's a different view of the legs. I love that they look curvy now even though they're just the same square legs.

I'm obviously not an expert at tufting because it's not perfect but I'm really happy with it. Here are a couple more pictures.

Look how deep those buttons are. I used different types of buttons, paired with a large amount of glue so hopefully they'll remain intact this time.

Deer Head Coaster

So how does everyone feel about the deer head trend? Have you noticed it at all? I sure have and I love it. There are an specially large amount of deer head silhouettes kicking around and I knew I wanted one for my living room.

Plus I have my awesome coffee table. Story for you, my sister-in-law came over and we had glasses of water that got placed onto the coffee table. I sat there thinking about the money I spent on that coffee table paired with the water dripping off her glass and it made me a little crazy until I finally reached over and wiped off her glass. Like a loser. So perhaps some coasters were called for.

I found these teak square ones at TJ Max for $8.00, a perfect blank canvas.

A little modpodge and glitter, paired with a vinyl stencil.

I didn't love the twine they'd threaded so I replaced it with some bakers twine. Probably not the greatest colour but it was that or red and that seemed too Christmasy.

I have four of them but it's a bit much for the coffee table so I've put two of them away.

I can now comfortably forget about the water and my coffee table and act like a grown up yet I also get to love my sparkly, deer head coasters.

Glitter Christmas Lights

This is a project I've been wanting to do now for a couple of years but I hadn't ever got around to it. Enter my Mom who of course, just happens to have the supplies on hand. I brought the modpodge, she had everything else so it cost us nothing.

It was a super satisfying project and so simple.
You just take some old Christmas lights, any colour, coat them with modpodge and then coat them in glitter. Shake off the excess and you have magic, sparkly lights. Toss them in a bowl and you have a cute Christmas decoration.

Mom went with a cute blend of brown, silver and light green.

Surprise surprise, I chose gold and emerald green. I stacked them in this cute square vase and put in on the built in shelf under the mirror in our front entrance.

They're exactly what we wanted, you should make some.

Couch Fix

Guys, I did the greatest thing. To explain let me start by telling you about my couch. I've had it for quite a few years and before that it was my Mom's. She gave it to us when she got a new one. It's super comfy and we especially like that if you take the back cushions off a person can very comfortably sleep there. It's not necessarily my favourite pattern but I didn't have to pay for it so it was perfect.

Only over the years the cushions have really started to look slouchy, especially the love seat. There was obviously a problem there as it had grown in width and shrunk in height. 

I didn't take before pictures so I went through and found these ones from when we lived in Lethbridge but that was 3 years ago. You can imagine how much worse they've gotten. 

Notice how you can see the back of the couch above the cushion? It's irritating and not the most comfortable. I didn't think anything could be done about it though so we dealt with it. 

Flash forward and I've started to upholster furniture. I currently have the ugliest duckling of couches in my garage just waiting to be made a swan. While I'm waiting for fabric I've been researching. I plan on adding buttons to the cushion but I didn't know how to do that so I searched and found this amazing post about how a woman took her slouchy, old cushions (just like mine) and added buttons. It looked brand new! 

My couch has arm rest covers but they ALWAYS ended up on the floor so years ago I put them away. I pulled one out and was shocked at how much cleaner it was than my couch so I took all the covers off and washed them with bleach. Once that was done I cut up the armrest cover to make covered buttons. Then I used this easy video tutorial to tie on my buttons. There are buttons on the back too so the cushions are still double sided. My love seat cushion had some tearing so I added some batting and did a little mending but nothing major. 

I can't believe the change! (After this picture I took the buttons off and moved them out wider, you'll see the difference later but this shows the throw pillows well)

That left just one last irritation. The throw pillows on this couch are huge, see on the above picture? They barely fit on the couch and fall off really easy because they're so wide. They are so tall that they sort of bend in the middle and they are constantly in the way so they get put on the floor all the time. To fix them I unpicked two sides of the covers, leaving the other two as is, and washed them. I took the pillow forms (just some bunched up batting now) and cut 4 inches off two sides. Then I wrapped it in a new layer of batting. I cut 4 inches off the covers and sewed them back up inserting my updated batting. They're more full and still useful but not in the way anymore.

It's such a huge change. After someone has been sitting for some time and they get up the cushions stay just like that. It's amazing.

Some before and afters.  

It sort of feels like a brand new couch and I started and finished it in one day.