Category Archives: Projects

Reusing old bar stools and making them new

REDO AND REUSE- THE LIVING ROOM PART 2

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Reusing old bar stools and making them new

If you read the previous living room post from a few weeks ago, you know that our living room has been struggling to find it’s identity (much like me. How ironic). Phase 1 has occurred and the ugly old brown bar stools have a new life!

I love covering things to make them new again. I didn’t want to paint these, I just wanted to give them a little life. New fabric is always a great way to go. It’s not terribly expensive and if you have a fabric store like mine, you can find some unique prints. There are also some great online resources such as Spoonflower.

What you’ll need: drill, scissors, staple gun, Scotch Gard spray, and of course fabric. Now I know Scotch Gard probably isn’t the greenest thing to use, but when you have toddlers it really cuts down on the amount of time I spend scrubbing out play dough stains from my fabric. Normally I wouldn’t even bother, but since this fabric is white and will be used often, I figured it was necessary.

After my hubby unscrewed the cushions from the chair, I cut the fabric into four equal squares. Setting the cushion in the middle of the fabric, I started by pulling the four sides in tight and stapling. *Note: be sure to watch the direction of the pattern on each cushion.

From there, you can begin going around the cushion, pulling the fabric tight and stapling.

 Once it’s all stapled and pulled tight, you can either trim the excess fabric or glue another piece of fabric over the stapled part. I decided to leave it unfinished since the base of the bar stool covers it.

Look at that beauty! Hey, I did that! Saweet!

Now is the time to apply the Scotch Gard. I’m no expert so follow the instructions on the can. Once that’s done, I reattached the bases to the stools, mindful of the pattern direction and done!

Easy peasy and now I have funky bar stools that no one else has! Look you can see my Toms in the background. We are becoming so cliche.

Stay tuned! I have pillows to make and maybe some fun DIY art too. What have you recovered and reused in your house?

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REDO AND REUSE- THE LIVING ROOM PART 1

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I feel as though like us, our house has been struggling to find it’s identity. It was built in 1968 and when we moved in it had suffered a bad 1980′s redo. Needless to say, the living room has been a struggle. In December, we finally updated and opened the kitchen and added a nice bar area. Of course, I wanted to clean the whole room before I photographed but hey, here is me in real life:

Oh man that’s messy. P.S. the oatmeal can is a toddler activity I found on Pinterest. The kid loves it! So our walls are gray and originally wood paneled. We loved these stools when we found them but I knew they would need to be recovered. That brown color is SO icky. Not to mention the giant stain already on the one stool. Thank you Ms. Fi.

Here is the current color scheme and fabric used in the room:

I had purchased these not long after we moved into this house. I was on a real Damask kick. The red and orange summed us up so well. I went to the University of Oklahoma and Chip is a ridiculous UT fan. So like I said, I love the colors but the pattern has got to go!

Now another important thing to factor in: I don’t want to be wasteful and keep this nice and eco-friendly so I decided to reuse the pillows as well as the bar stools.

Here is the pillow that inspired the new design:

I ran across this beauty at target a few months ago. We have a record player and felt it was SO us. I went to the fabric store and found the rest of the design:

The chevron fabric will go on the barstools and the other two fabrics will be used for the pillows. I’m so excited to keep the red and orange. I may even throw some burlap into it. We shall see!

Stay tuned! I’m going to start on the bar stools soon!

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