Fun Summer Outdoor Chair

Are you the kind of person that believes that furniture or homes can have a "life" or a "soul"? I didn't really know much about this until I came across this chair. It was a cute shape but the fabric was so drab.

The wood frame was distressed and had a greenish undertone to it and it just didn't work with the fabric. My client wanted something bright and bold to put out on their patio - and boy, did I deliver!

Reupholstering is a lot easier than people think. If it has fabric, it can be recovered. Usually the cushions are held on by screws so you just need to unscrew the cushions and have a heavy duty staple gun to be able to recover it.

I just draped my fabric over top and cut around the edges making sure I had enough fabric to staple on the back. If you follow my posts, you can look back at past reupholstering projects where I go into my detail about how to staple, etc.

Seat cushion was a quick stapling.

The back cushion was just as quick. I wanted to see if the green in the leaves would allow me to keep the frame as is without painting it but with the bold fabric now the wood looked drab against it.

If you do a lot of painting, my I suggest one of these spray shelters. Works great for blocking out the wind outside or even keeping it contained if you are spraying in your garage.

Bold is how I went. I used Rust-Oleum Ultra Cover in Marigold Gloss. I used about 3 1/4 cans of spray paint and layered it, let it dry, layered, let it dry, and so on to prevent drips and to make sure it was fully covered and even.

Once it was dry, I screwed on the cushions. I had a little extra stool that was a mismatch from the rest of the inside furniture so I decided to jazz it up as well to match this chair.

Here it is in its new home. My client was so giddy when I pulled it out of the back of my car and put it on her porch. It was a fun project for me to do. I am definitely not this bold so it was fun to do something different than I normally do. The fabric is an outdoor fabric I got at Joann's Fabric. Ok, so back to my original question - Can furniture have a "life"? I think I just breathed some into this piece. What a transformation! I love how it turned out.