My Shabby Chairs

Today is a cold, chilly Saturday and I am feeling crafty.

Waking up to 38 degrees in Florida is just crazy... and if it is this cold...we Floridians are allllll inside acting like it s a blizzard out there. And since we are indoors, I wanted to work with felt since it is such a warm and cozy material.

While doing this, I realized that I have not done a creative, craftyish type post in a long while so I thought I would share one of my most favorite things in the whole wide world that literally went from trash to treasure.

And no, it is not felt but whatever. I can be random like that and I wanted to share what I was thinking.


A few years ago (oh my word, it looks like it was over 4 years ago...PRE-KIDS!) I found this old chair on the side of the road waiting for the trash pick up. It was pretty beat up and the torn, dried out leather seat had seen better days. But all I saw was its potential at no cost to me and I jumped at this opportunity! I snagged the chair and got to work.


This was the final result!

I had picked up this fabric in different colors but in the same pattern in an antique store (though it was not vintage, it looked it and loved it) and I put it away for a rainy day. I was so excited to use it for a project like this.
I sanded the entire chair, painted it, and sanded it over and over resulting in a texture that is incredibly smooth. I used a very light green with some brick color reds thrown in to add depth to the staining while still revealing the grain of the wood. This is probably some type of painting technique called something which I have no idea about. I am all about winging it.

How fun that it ended up looking great. I absolutely love this chair! I am always drawn to something that looks worn, old, and distressed but with a feminine touch.


Another trash find was this chair that was really not salvageable. The back of the chair was broken with the wood splintered and cracked in the seat.

So I took the back of the chair off, had it sanded completely and added batting and used the same fabric (in blue) to make this into a stool of sorts. When we had a guest room, I placed it in there for additional seating or to lay a suitcase on.


I get incredibly excited to take something that no longer seems salvageable and not only make it useful but find a NEW use while making it pretty too!

Do any of you do stuff like this? Have you posted it? I want to see! I want to see!