Just before I left for Europe, I went out to lunch with some friends and the next thing I know, I was coming home with a chair. How does that even happen? I don’t know. Bad influences, I think. (You know who you are!) It’s kind of a kooky chair, I know, but I just couldn’t resist the pattern (elephants!) and the colors. It’s also super comfortable. One of the Frenchies seems to think it’s his new bed. Anyway, I’ve never seen this pattern before and I’m really curious. Do any of you savvy people recognize it?

Hmmmmm. I guess giving oneself a two-month deadline then going away for most of said two months wasn’t a very well thought out plan. Yup, it’s August 1 and there’s been basically no progress on that pesky To Do List. Well, I’m home for a few weeks so I’l just keep on keepin’ on and hope for a more productive month this month.

First up, two more reupholstering projects. (I swear I’m almost done with reupholstering!) Remember when I was all set to take this settee in for a makeover in blue?

Well before I got around to it, I stumbled on this fabric and fell in love (I seem to do that a lot, don’t I?)

I wasn’t sure what I would use it for but I brought it home anyway because that’s what hoarders resourceful people do. Then this weekend, I thought, “Why not try it out on the settee?”

That was it! The only thing I can’t decide on is whether to paint the wood. If I were to paint it, I would paint it white.

So what am I going to do with the blue fabric I was going to use on it? As luck would have it, it actually looks really good on the antique Louis settee that I’ve also been wanting to reupholster:

This type of furniture always look good with velvets. But then there’s that linen burlap I also got recently:

I love how it looks on it too.

So lots of decisions need to be made. Would you like to weigh in?

Like with the chairs I posted yesterday, I’ve gone through a myriad fabric choices for my dining room chairs. One of my top picks as of this minute is Alan Campbell’s Zigzag.

Some call it chevron. Some call it zigzag. I call it a classic – even if it has been somewhat overused in recent years.

And notice how similar it is to the zebra from yesterday’s post?

I tend to go back to certain things over and over and that’s when I know it’s true love and not just a crush.

Even if I decide to pull the trigger, there’s the whole question of which colorway to use so I’m not even close to making any decisions.

But it’s fun to look at all the options in the meantime!

(Photos: Quadrille)

After about a million ideas for paint colors and fabrics, here they are:

In case you somehow missed all the prior posts about these chairs, I I started here:

and in the end decided to not use any paint at all, leaving the wood as is and to go with this fabric:

I just love how they turned out! They’re neutral enough that I have options for using them in other rooms and different pillows to change them up now and then. (All of you who change your decor as much as I do know how important that is!)

I didn’t end up taking the settee in yet but that’s next so stay tuned.

I’ll say it again: reupholstering is so much fun!

(Photos: FTRB)

So I went shopping for burlap fabric to finally reupholster those green chairs of mine.

For those of you who asked about different types of burlap, for any furniture that you’re actually going to be sitting on, you don’t want to use pure burlap like grain sacks because they tend to shed and are scratchy and not very comfortable.  Instead, look for a blend with a good weight. I ended up getting this European linen burlap (at Lewis & Sheron) and it has that great texture I was going for but is also very smooth and soft.

It’ll look beautiful on those chairs, right? Right. But the story wouldn’t be interesting if I actually stuck with a plan, would it? Of course not. So I also got this:

I always love me some animal prints and this neutral one just jumped out at me. I brought it home and draped it on the chairs to see how it would look:

and I absolutely love it, especially against the dark wood! So as of this minute, I’m 99% sure I’m going with this. (I can use the burlap on something else.)

It’s to the upholsterer tomorrow! I’m also going to try to take the settee if it’ll fit in the car. Reupholstering. So much fun!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

(Photos: FTRB)

I’ve finally decided on a fabric to reupholster these two chairs:

….. and you may be surprised to hear that it’s burlap.

Burlap is one of those things that has been done to death the past couple of years and in general, there’s no faster way to turn me off of something. But, having said that, some things are just classics and they’re classics for good reason. I’ve always loved burlap for its texture and neutral hue and if I still love it now despite all the efforts of Restoration Hardware, the explosion of grain sacks covering everything and bloggers hating on it, I think it’s safe to say I always will.

I found a good photo of how the chairs will look:

The only thing I haven’t decided on is whether to paint the wood or not. At first, I wanted to paint them gold like the settee in the first photo but there is already a lot of gold in the living room where they will go so I decided against that.  But then again, I could use a mix of gold and white like this:

Or, my other thought was to paint them gray (naturally!), which would also look great with the burlap. (I’m leaning toward the gray as of this minute.)

(Photos: 1stdibs)