Apartment living, Chair, crafting, DIY Painting and Glazing Furniture, DIY Projects, Fun with friends, painting, recycled furniture, Repurposed Furniture, resale finds, Thrifty decorating

A Chair at the Table Craft day

I made this map chair about six months ago.
Map Chair Seat

Map Chair
Sweet Amanda, my most favorite daughter in law, liked it and may or may not have said that she would steal it. In order to save her from a life of crime, we started thinking about planning a day when her buddies could come over to Star Hill for a girls only craft day. Chairs in the country are crazy cheap so I got busy. I picked up these six beauties for @$5.00 each. I have also been collecting ideas for what to do with the chairs. Here are the chairs needing adoption by the girls and some links to great chairs for inspiration:

Chairs to Share

Yep. They really do look like a hoard in the Garagemahal. I have 6 chairs that I have spent a total of $25.00 on. At prices like this you know that some of them needed love.

Chair Repair

This beauty needed parts. Hubby had to make the cross pieces.

Here is a line up of the chairs that have been collected. I kind of feel like the SPCA trying to get someone to adopt pets.

The Blue is strapping hubby used to re-glue the legs.  All good now.

The Blue is strapping hubby used to re-glue the legs. All good now.

We were watching Baby for our friends and she attached herself to this chair.

We were watching Baby for our friends and she attached herself to this chair.

I think this old beauty would look cool with the slats painted in Ombre shades of one color.

I think this old beauty would look cool with the slats painted in Ombre shades of one color.

I have a thing for mission furniture.  Love this beauty.  Will look great uphostered and painted.

I have a thing for mission furniture. Love this beauty. Will look great uphostered and painted.

This beauty needed love to be ready for the chair day.  new parts, glue and screws are in.  Victorian feet, rosette at the top back, and a great shape.

This beauty needed love to be ready for the chair day. new parts, glue and screws are in. Victorian feet, rosette at the top back, and a great shape.

I have two of these for the party.  They have a lot of detail in the back and will really show off a glaze.

I have two of these for the party. They have a lot of detail in the back and will really show off a glaze.

Here are links to some inspriation chairs: Red Painted Chairs, Blue Chair,French Chair, White Upholstered Chair

Here are All Things Thrifty’s Week of Chairs. Love them

I have been picking up fabric in the remnant section and have even collected a few wild shirts from resale shops that might work for the seats.

The girls are going to bring paint from their projects along with what I have in the hoard.

I am looking forward to showing off the results from our chair affair.

Chair, Lake Livingston, recycled furniture, Star Hill, Texas

Chairs for the Porch

Our country home, Star Hill, has a porch that runs along two sides of the 950 square foot “mansion”. The home is in east Texas, in a lakeside neighborhood. Our lifestyle in the country is slow moving, with a lot of time spent outside. We have two seasons here; hot and chilly. Right now I have two great rockers and a vintage swing on the porch which you will see soon as we get the porch updated. I also have two plastic chairs on the front porch that I I got from my mom. They were forest green and faded when we got them. I painted them with brown paint two years ago and have them on either side of a chest I got for three dollars then painted our door color to store bird seed. The plastic chairs are functional, but way less than amazing.
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In my resale shopping I have been casually looking for some sturdy, cheap, rustic chairs that would hold up on the front porch and look like they belong in the country. I already had chairs that worked so this was not an emergency.
If I can give you one piece of resale shopping advice it is for you to get to know the owners of the resale shops you like. Deal directly with the owner when possible. Treat them fairly, tell them about your projects, bring in pictures of your finished projects, and always, always, always be nice. Even when the cost of an item is more than I am willing to pay, I never insult the shop owner. My favorite thrift store owner, Patricia, knows me well. She knows that I will be back and she knows that I am not afraid of a little work. On my last trip I told her I was looking for assorted chairs. I am planning on a chair weekend for Sweet Amanda’s friends. We are going to each redo a chair using our combined paint, accessories, and ideas. It should be fun. Patricia let me know that she had three matching chairs that need work she was willing to part with for $5.00 each. The chair bases were old and sturdy but the backs were loose and several spindles were unglued. I decided to take the best two. I loved the original vinyl on the seats and the nailhead trim. It did not have any rips or tears so I wanted to keep it. I knew as soon as I saw these chairs they would not be a part of the chair party. They were going on the porch. I thought I was going to paint the chairs a color of paint I bought a while back but did not use. It is a sort of cedar color that should blend well with the soon to be coming new cedar posts and rails on the porch but I decided the more I looked at the chairs the more I liked the weathered look.
The tricky part of the process was getting the spindles into the holes at one time. It took two sets of hands all working at once. So glad Larry was there to help out.
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After the gluing, I taped off the vinyl and sealed all the wood with polyacrylic. The sealant will protect the wood from the elements. I also saddle soaped the vinyl to make sure it was clean. They should hold up well for years.
This is a definite upgrade for the front porch. The chairs will come in handy when we need to add chairs to the table on the deck too.

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