Dining Room Chairs. Finally.

In March of 2009, we bought this dining room set on Craigslist. It was an adventure off into the middle of nowhere. Four and a half years later, I might have gone a different direction with style, but I do like this set still. It's classic without being too ornate.

What I've never liked is the upholstery on the chairs. It was ugly when we bought the set and the chairs were cream.

 I didn't redo them sooner because 1) I didn't realize how cheap it would be and 2) we moved; no reason to put new fabric on them when I wasn't going to be around to enjoy it. So they have been like this for four and a half years...

...getting progressively more grubby. Because seriously, who other than a crazy person upholsters chair seats in cream?

Anyway, last weekend I had sort of an "if you give a mouse a cookie" moment. I started in on a few other projects, and while cleaning those up at the dining room table, I thought to myself, "Maybe I'll just flip this chair over and see how hard it is to take off the seat." So I did, and it wasn't that hard. But then I had a chair with the seat detached, and I thought, "Maybe I'll just try to remove this hideous chair cover." So I did that too, and that was a huge pain.

That stuff was like Kevlar. You could have a very bullet-proof army of grandmothers outfitted in that fabric. I only took the fabric off one seat because of what a nuisance it was to remove. I just went over the others. Easier that way, too, because I didn't have to be careful about repositioning the foam as I stapled.

Anyway, this is the end result. SOOOO much better.

 

Oh, and it's outdoor canvas, so it will resist staining (and mold and mildew; let's cross our fingers we don't have to deal with that in the dining room.)