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.

One of my favorite projects in Dylan’s Bedroom is her headboard. The original plan was to use the head and footboard that we were using before (because its fantastic). The problem was, that against the hexagon wall it made your eyes start convulsing because there was just SO MUCH going on. I needed to put something solid against the wall so the fighting was calmed.

I found this amazing giant picture frame at the DI (Utah’s version of Goodwill) for $15.00. To be honest I bought it with every intention of selling it at the Hoard Sale. But then my bff Brooke pointed out that it is the exact width of a twin size bed (don’t you love friends that can connect the dots in your mind?!)  So this thrifted frame became the base for her headboard.

Living in Southern Utah has its advantages (its GORGEOUS here!) and its disadvantages (there is NO WHERE to buy fabric.)  So when I spotted this knobby woven pea green upholstery fabric at one of my favorite consignment stores I was ALL over it.

To make an upholstered framed headboard you will need:

A frame

1/2” piece of plywood or MDF cut to 1” larger  than the dimensions of inside trim of your frame. (If your frame is 35×44” your board should be cut to 36×45”) FYI you should buy your wood at Lowes, they have a bigger variety of precut options that you can trim down, so you wont need to buy a huge 4×8 sheet)

Egg carton foam. You can find this at Target or Walmart for $10-15

Batting

A stapler. A pneumatic one is preferable because it makes things SO MUCH easier. So. Much.

Button making kit (around $10 at Joanns. This includes the buttons too!)

If you are going to be repainting your frame you will want to do that before you upholster. I decided to change mine after it was already upholstered (remember this small detail) and I had to be super careful to not ruin my fabric with paint.

Upholstery is a 2 person job, so make your best friend some Swig Sugar Cookies and make a morning of it!

Start by laying your fabric face down on the floor, make sure there are no wrinkles in it! Next we are going to make an upholstery sandwich. So you have your fabric face down, next up is your batting, then your foam (if you are using egg carton foam make sure that the bumpy side is against the wood. (which is your last layer.)

Make sure you have enough fabric to wrap around and staple to the back. Also if you are using thinner foam (like I did) leave a little bit of excess foam that you can wrap around too. If you are using thicker dense foam you will need to cut it to the exact size of your board.

Start on one side and fold over and staple your fabric. Start in the middle and work your way out. Leave about 4 inches of unstapled space from the end of your board so you have fabric to work with when you do your corners.

Trim your fabric/foam/batting to the correct length. (I always do this after the first side is stapled down…one time of cutting it too short is enough for me.)

Next you are going to do the same thing to the OPPOSITE side of your headboard. This is where it becomes a 2 person job, one to pull the fabric tightly and one to staple. When you are pulling the fabric use 2 hands or else you will get places that are pulled tighter than others,  and that is just not a good look. (Remember to start in the middle!!)

Once you have gotten to this point it is time to do the dreaded corners. To quote my girl Brooke its just like wrapping a present.

Follow those steps for each corner. When you are finished your headboard should look like this:

Now you are going to do the same process of stapling one side and then the opposite. Make sure you pull your fabric SUPER TIGHT. This is what makes it look professional.

To finish off your corners fold your fabric in a straight line and staple along the edge.

You have a few options for attaching the frame to your upholstered board. You can use brackets,  you can nail through the board into the frame,  or you can nail through the frame into the board (which is what we did.)

The nails that we used are finishing nails that don’t really have a head so they left a very small hole. If you don’t have access to a nail gun I would nail it from the back.

Once your frame is attached its time to decide on the button placement. I wanted something that had a shallow mid century tuft (which is why we used thin foam and did not pre-tuft)  if you want deep button or diamond tufts your process is going to be a little different. Check out Brooke’s diamond tufting tutorial here.

Like the upholstery ninja that she is Brooke whipped out this piece of backing that has a grid on it. I have no idea of the actual name (if you know please leave it in the comments and I will love you forever!)

We marked where we wanted the tufts on the grid and then lined it up and marked on the headboard where they needed to be. This was 100x easier than measuring and leveling and measuring again.

Staple each mark and voila! Tufting!!

Once you have made your buttons (just follow the template and directions on the package, they explain it better than I can!) hot glue them over your tufting.

I hung this on Dylan’s wall with a Hangman. Its basically a big metal French cleat that can hold 200 lbs. I love them and have used them here and here and here to hang headboards.

Make sure to check out the other projects in Dylan’s Dream Room for lots of kid friendly ideas!!

The post Tufted Picture Frame Headboard DIY 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

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