{renovate} green chairs!

Wow, this week has clearly gotten away from me. I am the worst at prepping posts when I know I'm having a super busy week! Thanks for hanging in there with me friends :).

I DO have a fun spring project to share with you today, though!

Remember how we're working on renovating our screened-in back porch? No? Well I don't talk about it a lot, but it's been going on for quite some time (cough, years, cough). Here's the last picture I left you with:

Intended to be an outdoor dining space, we've gathered up six chairs over the years. Last fall I painted the white chairs you see and reupholstered their seats. So today we're going to talk about those brown chairs in the middle. As you can see, the space is incredibly neutral ... lots of greys, browns, whites. So I wanted to inject a little color and have fun with these last two chairs ....

...which, are now green! 

We actually came across these chairs in a garbage pile on the side of the road. What?! You can just imagine me screaming at politely telling Chris to pull over. :)

It's really obvious, even in the photo, that the original stain was all scratched up and worn off. And, that blue vinyl seat cover was leaving something to be desired.

This was a very straight forward chair makeover, but I put together a few tips for reupholstering chairs that I thought would be helpful, and not necessarily mentioned in other tutorials.

1. Take cushion off the chair: in this case it involved removing a number of screws from each chair. Keep the screws in a place where you won't lose one ;).
2. Decide how much of the original fabric you want to pull off -- if any! I opted not to pull it off at all because the slick vinyl makes a nice surface to build on.
3. Mark your screw holes. Seriously, this was a life saver at the end. Each chair had two long screws and two super short screws. So I labeled each hole and it made putting the chair back together a breeze.
4. Whether you are keeping the existing material or you pulled it all off, start with a layer of batting. It will not only keep things cozy, but it helps hide the color of the original fabric. Then you get to staple! You don't want to staple in circle though -- things will get bunchy. After your first staple, pull the fabric and put your next staple directly across from the first. For your next staple, pick the mid point between the first two, pull tight and then do the opposite side. Keep doing the opposite staple thing for as long as you can, pulling tight as you go. Then, you just fill in with staples where you think it needs extra reinforcement. This technique will help you keep the fabric both taut and centered.

And, of course, some pretty detail shots for you guys ....

Aren't they cheery? I think they add a great dose of color to the space. Oh, and if you're wondering about the fabric (which is gorgeous, no?), I actually got it from Moxie Mandie, who happens to have a killer eye when it comes to fabric. Maybe she'll remind me in the comments where it's actually from?? :)

So friends, have you added a fun dose of color to your space lately? What bright colors do you like to incorporate to break up the neutral?

ps. The chairs aren't at the table in these shots because our back porch has become the staging area for project: kitchen and is full of appliances. YAH! :)