"DIY" - Part 1

Ryan and I do not do too much major DIY work. Since Ryan is a builder, they have lots of sub-contractors that will come do things for us for really good prices. So, that is what we typically do. Yes, I am spoiled! :) We have done some things around the house but we always tend to run into problems and they seem to take way longer than expected. But, this weekend, we decided to tackle a few things ourselves.

First, I convinced Ryan that we needed to re-cover our dining room chairs and that I could do it myself.

Back story: When Ryan's grandparents moved out of their house into an assisted living facility, we inherited their dining room table, china cabinet and curio cabinet. This was definitely a plus since new dining room furniture was low on our "to buy" list. Our dining room has evolved into a Black, Silver and Gold themed room. This came about because Ryan's parents gave us their old chandelier, which was an upgraded version of the one that came with the house. It is brass. I am not a huge fan of brass, but it was a much bigger and nicer chandelier so it was hard to say no. We weren't too sure about trying to paint it, so instead, we got black shades to make it a little more modern. The rest of the items in our dining room (china, serving pieces, accessories) were silver or had silver accents. We even had some candlesticks that were silver with black accents. Perfect! I decided to make the most of it and incorporate the three colors. It has turned out nice.

The only thing that has been bothering me is the maroon chair cushions. They just didn't "go".

So, after many hours of watching Trading Spaces and HGTV, I was convinced that I could just re-do them myself. I had the idea of finding some gold and black striped fabric. I drug Ryan to Joanne's Fabrics (he felt very out of place) and we found several fabrics that we liked. Of course the ones we liked were outrageously priced. So we looked and looked and found a nice gold on gold striped fabric. It wasn't exactly what we wanted but it was only $10 per yard, then was on sale 50% off. $5 a yard sealed the deal.

The project turned out really well. The only problems I faced was that my staple gun was just not cutting it. So, off to Home Depot to pick up a new one. Ahh, much better. I got all four chairs done in about an hour or so.