Oooooo! Projects! {in the words of Cher Horowitz}

I'm taking a break from work and decided to post one of my Summer projects (finally). This was actually done before the Scentsy party, so that's been what? A month ago? Something like that. lol Anyway, I hope you'll love my thriftiness. (yes. that's a word. shut up.) I'm so loving myself right now for being more eager to walk into a GoodWill (although this project has nothing to do with GW) and to find her inner SprayPaintingSelf.

It begins with this.
Any project requires a refreshment of some kind,
my vice is freshly brewed slightly-sweet iced tea.

You need spray paint.
In my case, I needed lots and lots of spray paint.

Normally, I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kinda gal,
(aka: instant gratification overrules proper planning and thus short-cuts are taken)

But!!! After reading my favorite blog (Thrifty Decor Chick), I find that she rarely takes such

short-cuts and generally does an excellent job every. single. time. That's why her projects are so awesome. Yeah. Seriously.

I learned a handy tip about spray paint. Use primer. (Can you see the gray cans? Those are primer cans. I'm so not slacking on this job.) But the cool thing is, you can use basic ol' WalMart paint for $1.00 a can and then purchase a more expensive brand for your final coat. My "expensive" brand was Krylon and it was $3.96.

Do you have one of these? They're quite handy if you're using a lot of spray paint.
Spray painting can be murder on your pointer finger and since I use my hands for "real" work
I figured it would be smart (I know!) to get one of these here guns fer my "project".

$3 bucks at Lowes.

My Mom bought a table and chairs set in the early seventies from good ol' Swallens Department Store. She thinks they were $88 dollars for a table and four chairs. When she bought them they were yellow. They have gone through several changes since. Sometime in the mid-eighties, she gave the set to my brother and his wife. Maribeth (my SIL) put purple covers on them and then later changed them to the pink plaid (that you see above).

They always looked nice wherever they were... until they got to my house. That's when they went to pot. lol The table had been through a lot of years and wear and tear, and didn't last very long here. It went to the curb a couple years ago. ::sigh:: I'm sure I could have fixed it, now that I'm in this restoration mood, but alas it's gone and nothing I can do about that now. Spilled milk.

So, the above photo is how they were given to me. They are cute, no? :) They're very sturdy chairs and the wrought iron is so thick, that they would never bend even if a fat large person like me sits in them.

This is the underneath. I used Jeff's drill to remove the screws and began removing the staples with a knife (slowly). Then I added batting to the top of the padding to make it a bit fluffier. I know, how handy am I?! (this was my mother's idea, lol, i can't take credit)

This is the chair pre-primer.

I am so glad that I used primer (I've never done that before...although it's been a very long time since I spray-painted anything of real worth). The primer made the black spray paint go on so nicely, well worth it.

Here's the chair with the black paint.
Talk about a major overhaul. I brought them into the year 2009, no?

And, here's the final result with the new fabric on them. I put new stoppers on the bottoms of their legs so they wouldn't scratch my floors. I am so thrilled with how they turned out!

The fabric is called "Linen Like" from Joann's Fabric and it's a cherry red with raised cream shimmery flowers. Moon was with me when I bought it and the fabric was screaming my name for me to buy her. What? You don't believe me? Whaa? Well, ask Moon. She knows. She was there. She heard it. It was jumping all over the place for me to take her home... so I did.

Then I found out I needed MORE fabric and called my Mom and made her run to her Joann's (she didn't literally run, be she got there in about twenty minutes. no seriously. she did.). I totallllly lucked out because she got me another few yards and now I have enough to make some accent pillows for my sofa. Yippeee!!! Cheap thrills. I know. Issues.

I also made a valance too, you can see it below...
easy peasy...

Here's my living room...

You can see where I accented red on the square wall blocks. Love them.
Target end cap. $2.37 each.

Cute ceramic elephant with trunk up. Tuesday Morning. $1.19
(originally $29.99)

If you're wondering what's behind my sofa, it's a long piece that Jeff made for me.
The idea came from HERE. Btw, the lamp shade isn't purple. It's brown. Just looks purple.

This is my dining room with a ton of chairs and three leaves in the table. Ready for people. lol
Normally I have no leaves in it and only dining room chairs, so ignore the extras.

I do not like clutter. I do not like little bits of this and that all over the place. I like clean walls and things that have purpose (or things that look good...I like that too! lol). I used to have all sorts of crap stuff sitting on tables, tons of stuff to dust. Then came kids and tiny fingers and lots of things got broken and I realized very quickly that these were just things and really? Did I need all this stuff here? No. So out they went.
I suppose you could say I'm a minimalist? I suppose.

Okay, here's the valance.

Dark day, sorry about the poor lighting in this photo. lol But you can see the valance at the top...
I used batting over the wood fixture that Jeff made for me (two years ago). Thankfully,
I finally got around to doing something with it. Yeah. We've only lived here for five years.
That's not a long time, right? lol

More red accents on the lamps.
Value City on clearance. $9.99 each.

The "live/laugh/love" thing won't be there for long. I found a black wooden piece of writing in script that says, "Friends" and I'm going to paint it red and put it there. :) Can't wait!

Okay folks. That's the end of my first redo. I am very proud. I truly lurve (!!!) how my chairs came out. I use them as "extras" for my dining room. Two are on the sides of my buffet and two are on the blank wall (after we removed the three leaves from the table, mind you). My house isn't terribly large but with everything being so clean, it looks even bigger. :) LURVE it!!

I hope you enjoyed it. I sure did!