Sometimes I Impress Myself

Having tackled the re-inventing of my dining room table, the time had come to do something about the chairs. While in great shape, the cushions (covered in forest green pleather) were all cracked and showing an indecent amount of batting. A friend of mine showed me how simple it was to take the cushions off (four screws), take off the old covering and staple on a new one. Well, this was amazing to me. Here I've been embarrassed to have people sit on my cracked cushioned chairs and all this time I could have fixed it very easily! Of course I immediatly became overwhelmed by choices: vinyl, cotton or outdoor fabric? Print or solid? Soft or durable? My girlfriend suggested the inexpensive choice of shower curtains (the vinyl kind); great if you have kids and need something easily cleaned and relativley cheap. Having no children, I didn't have to worry much about that. I walked around the fabric store with no idea of what I wanted when I spotted a green plaid flannel. I knew at once that this was what I wanted; a soft, comfortable, worn (in a loved kind of way) looking fabric to go with my worn (also in a loved kind of way) looking house. I doubled over the fabric to make it a little thicker, but because the springs are old you can still see a bit of a lumpy quality to the chairs (kind of like their owners...) It only took me about an hour to recover the four chairs.

Big thanks to my friend, Heidi, who not only suggested this idea but also gave me the staple gun with which I could not have succeeded!