Who remembers the Jenny Jones show? It aired when I was much too young and impressionable to be watching it, but sometimes when my mom went to the grocery store I would sneak. My favorite episodes were the ones where guests would bring a bully from their past to show them that, while they used to be a nerd,  they now were a sexy stripper… or something along those lines. I just never understood why they felt the need to try to validate themselves like that. Until now.

The Hoard Sale was AMAZING, but as we were cleaning up I was dumbfounded at the treasures that people passed up. Stuff that was amazing, and a great price, that got overlooked because all of the “good stuff” had been taken. Well guess what? It was allllll good stuff. (Do a body roll while you read that last line.)

So I am doing a makeover series that is reminiscent of Jenny, to show off their hot new look. Catchy JJ title and all…

You Left Me In The Dust, Now Living With Me Is A Must!

Up first is this set of chairs. They were r.o.u.g.h. I bought them at a consignment store for $40 and was almost blinded by the quilted country blue fabric that had crusty dust all over it.

Delightful no?

I started by taking off the fabric and old foam. If the foam cushions are in good shape they can totally be reused. I was worried about leprosy, so I decided to biohazard them.

Trace the seat shape on a new piece of foam (these are available at Joann’s for $5 with a coupon)

I am seriously obsessed with the perfect bright mustard linen that I found to recover it with! (I also scored this at Joann’s)

To recover your seat, you are going to make a seat sandwich. Lay your fabric down first. Then lay down a layer of batting, then your foam, and lastly your wooden seat.

I would love to just take a minute and note the choppiness of foam edges. I couldn’t find scissors ANYWHERE. In my drawn out and diligent search I threw up a prayer asking for any scissors at all. Well, the man upstairs has a sense of humor because the only pair that I could find was kiddie safety scissors. Which do in fact work better than a steak knife. In case you were wondering…

Each chair is different, but basically you are going to pull your fabric tight and staple. Make folds instead of bunches and you will be such a professional.

Flip it over and screw it to your seat base!

That chair is sexy. Sometimes horrible fabric and gangrene is hard to look past, I get it. But I am pretty excited that no one could pull the trigger and buy this baby.

**Check out the other projects in this series here!

Um…Best news ever. This series isn’t going away any time soon, I have a few more Hoard Sale cast asides that are DYING to show off their sparkle! Jenny! Jenny!

It is my favorite time of the season, Color Challenge time!!

This quarter we decided to embrace the essence of summer and go with yellow (but of course my darling!)

Check out everyone’s projects below, there is just so much goodness to discover!

The post You Left Me In The Dust, Now Living With Me Is A Must! appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Creating a room design around thrifted and found treasures can be um… a little challenging sometimes.

The reoccurring missing link in Cara’s Office makeover was the stool. For the love of everything that is holy we could not find a stool. Not a cheap one, not an expensive one, not one that could be converted into something fantastic. NOTHING.

To this problem, I may I may have pitched the idea that standing while you get your makeup done is in fact EXCELLENT for your circulation. Cara was not amused.

So what do you do when life doesn’t even give you lemons? You pray. And you hope that somewhere buried deep in the pages of Craigslist that you will find a lemon tree…or even a lemon drop. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Just give me something to work with.

The last 2 hours of the last day that I was in Vegas to finish the office, finally cracked a glimmer of hope. On Craigslist I found a listing for 3 brass barstool bases. They were old and HEAVY and tarnished. Their previous life had been in an old school casino slot bank. Ah the stories that these boys could tell.

They were absolutely PERFECT.

(This is where I would normally insert a picture from the CL ad but alas, it has been forever lost in the abyss of my picture files…)

I think I may have freaked the seller out a little. Sometimes I can be a little over excited. I cant help it. I am like a puppy.

But the good news is that we were able to meet up and for a measly $36 all three were mine.

We mad dashed into the nearest Goodwill store for anything that had a back. Picture Minute To Win It room makeover edition. The winner was the most horrendous conference hotel chair that you have ever seen. It is so bad its cliché.

I mean, dont you want that in your house? Maybe Motel Glam is going to replace Shabby Chic one of these days….

Luckily for everyone that values their eyeballs, today is not that day.

I took the legs off of the hotel chair and attached it to the brass barstool base.

Looking better already! #amiright?

I then used 2 flokati (white furry) rugs from Homegoods and made sort of a pillow case/ slip cover with them by sewing two together (right sides together) .

After I flipped it right side out, I put it over the chair like a pillowcase. I had to cut a slit in the bottom so that the slipcover could wrap around the brass base. Once everything fit nice and snug I used a staple gun to secure Miracle’s new dream coat in place.

And voila!

So next time my lovie you are in the market for an amazing chair, remember to not judge a book by its cover,  or a chair by it’s fire-proof 1993 beige and burgundy fabric for that matter.

Total cost for this project:

Base: $12
Chair: $8
Rugs: 2 @ $17.99

Total: $55.98

Witnessing a real life Miracle? Priceless.

The post Miracle the Mighty Stool appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

This post has been a long time coming!

I am not a expert at this. Basically my only advise is to take things apart and put them back together the same way the best that you can. I did this project really quickly and didn’t take as many pics as I should. Sorry!

Here we go. Oh and remember the rule here at Vintage Revivals. Don’t you judge my messy house.

First things first you want to take off the trim. Usually it is hot glued down so you can just pull it off. This will reveal a crapload of staples.

Start with the side panels. You know these:

The best way that I found to get the staples out is with a pair of pliers. You grab the fabric and then roll the pliers and it takes them out a lot easier than grabbing it and pulling.

See you roll it like this

Be careful that you don’t damage the batting and padding on it. Unless you are not reusing it then go to town.

One its all stripped down it will look like this:

This is the part that you would paint if you are going to do that. I whitewashed mine with my favorite paint ever. Decoart’s Gloss Enamel in White. Its really thick and I use it for everything. I just mixed it with some water brushed it on and wiped it off. I did 4 or so layers to get the color that I wanted.

Ok back to the chair. I chose to not take the bottom part off because the cushion is covering it anyway and I was sick of pulling out staples.

THen you are going to lay your fabric out and put your pieces on top of it. I always cut mine a little bit bigger. Especially in a project like this where there is very little sewing. That way you have more “grab” room to pull it tight. The fabric that I used was Gray Courdory (without the stripes.) It was $6.99/ YD (-40% off coupon) I bought 4 yards.

Then you are just going to go back and start with the last piece you took off and put that one on first. When I was doing it there was a lot of finagling to get things tight. I used my air compressor stapler and I really liked it.

This next pic is of the inside of an arm. Can you see how much you have to pull and crap to make it look like an actual chair?

This is how I did the arms,

First you want to tuck and staple your fabric on the inside of the chair (next to the cushion)like the pic above

Start stapling along the edge (you can see in the bottom of the picture what I am talking aobut)

Then you are going to tuck the fabric as you roll it around the arm. Can you see how its not tight yet? That’s because the fabric at the back of the arm is not attached yet.

At this point I stapled the bottom of the arm. You want to make sure that the fabric is REALLY tight when you do this. And staple it as evenly and straight as possible. (not like what I did in this pic…)

Then you are going to finish tucking your rolls.

Pull the fabric back as tight as you can and staple the back of the arms.

Then you are going to add the side panel (The first thing that you took off.) I don’t have a pic cause I did this step at 2 in the morning and was clearly dilusional at this point)

The you are going to add your trim and tada! You are done! Over all with sewing the cushion and everything I would say this project took me about 2 days.

I am really looking forward to another reupholstery project now that I kind of know how it works! If you have any advice to share please do!!

Linking up to Tatertots and Jello

The post How To Reupholster A Chair- I Think. appeared first on Vintage Revivals.