New Living Room Chairs for Under $100

I rode my bike on a bunch of errands to get out of the house this afternoon. Dropped some things off at Goodwill -- yes, I'm popping in there 3-4 times a week, but it's a block away and that's how you find the really great stuff! I didn't buy anything today. I'm pretty restrained, but I've made some awesome purchases the past few months.


Then I dropped off some dry cleaning and rode down to Baja Fresh for a $2.50 taco lunch and a cookie from Champagne Bakery. Then rode to Pep Boys and bought some oil for my vehicle, which hardly ever gets used anymore. Next I went next door to all four F and S Fabrics shops -- the regular fabric store, the outlet store and the two interior design fabric stores. They're all within a block of each other.


I've had two of the chairs seen above kicking around for at least 6 months now. I bought fabric to reupholster them once, and hated it-- see the seat in the photo above -- blah. Just did not pop! So with the sofas leaving me soon, I need replacement furniture. Since I've decided to just polish up the wood and not paint it as I had planned, I'm aiming to get these done this week to use in the living room. After many hours of deliberation on the matter I think this is the fabric I am going to go with. To get a sense of the scale this is the entire 60" bolt you are seeing in the photo. Those are some big paisleys!

After a lengthy consultation with the fabric store guy, we've decided to center one of the big paisleys in the middle of one seat and two of the smaller ones on the seat of the other chair. I was itching to just buy and go with it, but was advised to bring swatches home.


I'm thinking this green paisley for the seats with small rectangle pillows (14" x 6"-ish) against the seat back made from a cream ticking fabric with green stripes.

• Chairs were $28 for the pair.
• Fabric will be between $27-54 depending on how we place the paisleys.
• A half yard of the ticking for the pillows will be $10.
• I'll do the upholstery and sewing myself so that's free.

The swatches look good. I think it's a GO! Good bye love seat, hello sassy new chairs with a lovely table and plant between them. More to come. 


Other projects in the works:

•  paint the kids table and 2 chairs (they got the first coat about 6 months ago and are now totally thrashed from heavy, abusive kid use)
• revamp the photo "clothes line" on the long living room wall
• get the couches out. That has to happen tomorrow.
• figure out the desk situation. The new bulletin board is temporarily in place. Now I'm wondering if I should put my sewing machine in that spot in my room for a while.
• tidy up the workshop that was once a lovely living room. I caught a foot in my painting drop cloth spread across the living room floor tonight, not good.

I'm feeling some definite good vibrations from all the freshening up going on around here. It's amazing how good it feels just to move a few things around and change the sights you see every day. No need to spend a lot of money or throw everything out and start from scratch. A few simple changes feel SO good! This changes how I feel about me, where I live and how I live. I love that.