Sunday, August 15, 2010

Frugal Chair Covering

This is pretty cool......our local "recycle center" (A.K.A. the garbage dump) has a storage shed that they encourage people to use to drop off items that could be used by others instead of going to the landfill. It's sort-of a "free" thrift store. Items that are not picked up one day are thrown away by the staff the next day.

A couple of weeks ago as I was throwing out my trash, I spied this set of 4 chair frames sitting in the shed. So I scooped them up before anyone else could!



Next I had to scrounge something to make the seats from.....off to the Habitat store in Asheboro. The local furniture manufacturer, Klaussner Furniture (who, by the way, keeps their Citation jet at the Asheboro Airport) donates their fabric samples to the store. Stack upon stack of really nice fabric squares to choose from....





I couldn't decide in the store what color, so I bought a whole pile of them. I got 24 - 2'x2' squares.....all for $2.00 !!! I only needed 4 - so if you've got a project , let me know.



Next I had to make a new seat frame - so I traced out a pattern.





And transferred the pattern to some left-over plywood.





Easy as pie!


I found some foam that was packaging material for some airplane parts. Traced out the pattern to fit the chair bottom. Cut it with a razor blade....



Not all that pretty by itself, but it will get the job done.



With the trusty staple gun, I started fitting the fabric over the foam.




All stretched and stapled in place.




First one finished. It's not fancy, but it sits nicely. And terrific because it's just about as close to "free" as you get!


All done! Now Richard just needs to find an apartment to fill up with furniture!!!

6 comments:

Miranda said...

Wow, those look awesome! You did such a great job! =)

My dad loves going to the recycling center because of the "swap shop" as he calls it... I've gotten some pretty neat stuff there myself!

affectioknit said...

I guess I don't need to say just how AWESOME I think that is...

Love,

T

Elizabeth said...

Nice compliments from two discerning commenters. I agree. Our local trash center no longer has such a swap room, wish they did. MOM

Just Marianne said...

Smartypants!

Sharon said...

You are so green! The chairs look great.

Karen said...

thanks everyone!! it is fun to "make something from nothing".