Shabby French Chair, part 4

Remember this French chair makeover from January? It’s giving me fits!

Here’s what she looked like straight from EBay

Shabby French chair, part 1

I was on a roll pulling of the old upholstery, old foam, straw, and springs.

Shabby French Chair, part 2

Painting her was the easy part, although I painted her white, then grey, then creamy white before I was satisfied.

Shabby French Chair, part 3

Above is the first seat piece of linen, ugh! it didn’t work as I made cuts for the arms and back too soon. Ended up being short material. Then I cut a new seat bottom piece, I goofed that one also!

And here is seat piece # 3. It still looks lumpy and bumpy but at least I didn’t cut away too much material so I could tack down along the arms and the back braces. This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever tackled. I have actually reupholstered a love seat…twice. That love seat looked soooo much better then this. Here the last reupholster job on that loveseat just prior to Katrina. I even lined up the big blocks of color! Oh, how I miss all my old furniture. :( And look, in the dinning room….there are the old slip covers from 2004, they were tossed in the trash pile as well. 2 X :( !

Back to the French chair…

Oh my, it’s still ugly, lumpy and bumpy! It may be because of the curvy French lines. Or maybe it’s because I’m so sick and tired with working this little chair!

But no despair here. My original plan was to make a soft and squishy down filled pillow/seat to cover the seat bottom, with cute little sort ruffle/pleats. I’m hoping I can design the down cushion and the pleats to hid all the above mistakes. What do you think? Can I pull it off?

Make sure to check out all these great Friday party links:

Shabby French Chair, Part 3

So, who told me or where did I get the idea I could reupholster furniture? It is not as easy as it looks.

Kathy at Kate’s Place and Linda at Lime in the Coconut made it look and sound like a breeze! HA! It ain’t!

Top back looks ok, but that was the easy part.

Yes, I have to work on my kitchen island or floor. It’s pathetic not to have the right work space to do these projects.

I love the TACK look, it is shabby for sure. But considering doing a double welt.

Also considering bringing her to a professional upholster! HA!

Here’s a little TACK love….the settee and the cute club type chair are showing their tacks. What look do you like? The tacks showing or covered with welt or gimp?

MY SHABBY BIG BUTT FRENCH CHAIR

Thanks Cindy at My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday and Miss Mustard Seed Furniture Feature Friday for having your great Friday parties!

She’s here! She’s here! I won her back on February 10 and patiently waited while her previous owner arranged her shipping. I didn’t have to go back to the Greyhound station, this baby was shipped freight with R&L Carriers. She was in a huge box, paper stuffing, bubble wrapping, then this final cotton stuffed brown wrapping. It took me at least an hour to unwrap her. I’m grateful to the former owner for taking such time to protect her. She is more gorgeous then I imagined. “French upholstered wood carved chair 1900-1920” , aqua-blue silk was her description on E Bay that made me drool.

She’s down stuffed and she’s a BIG BUTT CHAIR! Remember Linda’s beautiful BIG BUTT CHAIR that Milo did over in that luscious tropical IKAT and linen? One of my favorite posts! My baby is a huge 33 inches wide, great for any big butt or 2 skinny butts. And oh my, she is so comfy. You never really know till you sit in a chair, so I consider myself lucky with this one.

See the pillow on the floor? That’s one I made from leftover silk from my bedroom curtains. The color is so close. Not too blue, not too aqua, just the perfect combination of both that I love.

My pillow... might be the same silk fabric...looks so the same to me!

She is very shabby, there were bits of paint that fell off with her packing

Pretty details

I’m moving dragging this poor chair from room to room to see where she bests fits. Here she is in my bedroom.

I’m so glad that she is here, she inspires me to finish other projects that I’m working on. I’m so slow at finishing things sometimes. Life gets in the way of projects! OR projects get in the way of LIFE!! Ha! Husband just informed me I’m entertaining for out of town business colleagues tomorrow night. So got to put away hide all my works in progress, get busy cleaning and menu planning. Happy weekend!

Shabby French Chair make over, Part 2

Friday PARTY TIME at Cindy’s Show and Tell Friday and Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday.

Remember this chair that I last posted about….

What a lot of work, stripping her down, getting out all the nails and staples…

see all the red fringy stuff, glue and staples… everywhere!

After an entire week of breaking my nails, cutting my hands and fingers with sharp utensils, and pulling all that old nasty stuff off…here are the springs…

the upper side of the springs, all old burlap. I know everyone wants and loves old burlap…but…

do you know how smelly and dusty the really old stuff is?

I’m saving it all, but out in the garage. Don’t want all this stuff that is making us sneeze.

the printing on the burlap, can’t read very well…

So here she is in her first coat of Pewter Grey

Grand dog Bailey helping me every step…

she never leaves my side…

I plan to use 2 more coats of paint…

like it so far…

Bailey does too!

Shabby French Chair makeover, Part 1

Joining Miss Mustard See’s Furniture Feature Friday and My Romantic Home’s Show and Tell Friday.

These first 3 photos are my inspiration pictures from Karina Gentinetta’s Etsy shop. She has a shop on Magazine in New Orleans and is a fellow Katrina victim. She has been a source of hope and dreams to me for a while!

All her items are drop dead gorgeous but way out of my price line.

Below is a picture of a chair from Country French Antiques blog that I drool over all the time.

And her is my chair that I won on Ebay, the other one is coming also but she doesn’t need a make over! So I had to go the Greyhound station in Gulfport to pick this up. Scary place and a story in it’s own.

Got her stripped down to the old muslin…

See the old nails?

and whatever straw or something for stuffing…

I believe old chairs have joints like this in that round back. This chair has lots of joints such as this. I am no expert on antiques on vintage pieces, though!

carving on the arm

and the foot. Is this type of foot called “snail feet”? Anyone know?

carving at the bottom

and at the top….

This project will take me a while to finish. I’ve got to find the Belgian linen, do a little more research, and try to pull those tiny staples out from the ugly burgundy reupholstered job. Thinking about removing all the old stuffing and muslin. Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated!