DIY Folding Chair & Bench Reupholster Makeover

I'm so pumped I can finally share this fun furniture reupholster DIY with all of you! The final products have been sprucing up my room for weeks and I just can't keep them to myself anymore. This is actually a 2 part DIY, so you may be inspired by one or the other, or both. For me, the first part was inspired by a chair DIY that I spotted on Pinterest that I immediately knew I wanted to try myself. The second part just seemed like an obvious choice for a followup project.

I've had these old chairs taking up space on my front porch since the day I moved into my apartment. They've never been used, as they look far from inviting. Considering the chairs were over 10 years old (one of them still had its Ames price sticker on it) I'm not surprised that they were a bit beat up. 

I ended up only reupholstering one of the chairs because the screws on the other were stripped beyond repair. But that was ok with me because it paved the way for part 2 of the project. Before beginning the makeover process, I made sure to clean the chair from head to toe. I removed the seat from the frame first to make it easier to clean. My chair also had a back cushion, but because it wasn't attached by screws I just had to rip it off. Then, I gave the frame a new look by spraying it with a couple of coats of Krylon - Catalina Mist spray paint and left it to dry.

While the frame was drying, I got to work on the reupholstering. The seat cushion wasn't really in the worst shape, so I decided to keep it. I removed the old fabric from the seat and replaced it with new fabric. To do this, just stretch the new fabric over the cushion and fold it under itself along the edges for a clean look. Using a staple gun, staple the fabric to the bottom of the seat. Start stapling at the center of each side and work your way out to the corners.

I thought it might be tricky to attach the fabric with the staple gun to the back cushion because of the shape, but it ended up being just as easy as the straight edged seat. After the paint had dried on the chair frame, it was time to put the cushions back in place. I attached the back cushion to the chair using E600 industrial strength glue and let it set for 48 hours.

The seat cushion was easy to put back in place, as it just required a couple of screws. At this point I was bummed that I wasn't going to be able to have a matching chair set since I wasn't able to makeover my second chair. I decided that I needed to give this chair a matching piece of some sort so I moved along to Part 2...

I've had this little bench for years and years. I love it because it appears simple, but if you look closely, all 4 of it's legs are different. I feel like that unique flair is just my style! It used to be my piano bench way back when, but has since just been a place to stack books and papers. It clearly needed a makeover as well.

First things first, since the bench was black I had to prime it before spray painting it. After it was primed, I finished it with the same mint color I had used for the chair.

Since this bench never had a cushion before, I went out and bought cushion foam for it from Joann Fabrics. I stapled the edges of the foam to the top of the bench so that it would stay in place once I attached the fabric on top. The fabric was stapled the same way as it was on the seat - starting in the center and working my way out to the corners.

I decided to get rid of my bulky office furniture and replace it with these new pieces, and I'm loving my work space so much more now! It's way more fun doing work when you're surrounded by funky colors and patterns!

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Driftwood Accessory Hanger

Last week New England lived up to it's reputation by delivering unseasonable summer weather in the middle of March. I took full advantage by going for a run along the beach at the end of my street and soon found myself inspired. Typical. As I finished up my run and started my cool down (how convenient) I spotted this lovely piece of driftwood just sitting in the sand, free for the taking. I couldn't help myself.

I thought about using the driftwood to create a coat rack, but since I already have one of those I opted to make an accessory hanger instead. I could probably use at least 10 of these things. While continuing to take advantage of the warm weather, I took a stroll down Newbury in search of some dresser knobs to bring my project to life. Found some!

After that, all I needed to see this project through was tools from the ole tool drawer. Check out this drill! Who needs electricity when I have this awesome hand powered drill.

...and some drill bits.

Getting down to business, I placed the knobs at equally spaced intervals along the driftwood and marked their location.

Using the marvelous aforementioned hand drill, I drilled small holes at each mark. 

 See?

I attached the knobs as shown and tightened them in place. Things are really starting to come together now.

Once all the knobs were in place it was time to hang up the final piece! Seeing as mounting things to the wall is my kryptonite, I'll spare you my process and leave you to your own devices for that. I will gladly however, share this photo of my accessories on my brand new driftwood hanger! 

Kitchen Makeover

This project was a joint effort between my roommate and myself. We recently moved into a new apartment (hence the delayed posting) that came with a not so nice peach-painted kitchen. We knew that this just wouldn't work for us and decided to do something about it (with our landlords permission of course!)... 

This is what we started with. First we removed all the cabinet hardware.

The hood over the stove was pretty beat up looking so we scraped all of the paint off it to start over.

Being careful to avoid paint splattering.

After the walls and cabinets were primed, we taped off the area around the hood of the stove and gave it a fresh coat of heat resistant spray paint.

Once that was done we painted everything else "wedding bell white" and reattached the hardware. We actually gave the hardware a fresh coat of paint too.

Here's the final before and after...

Skateboard Art

I have recently discovered the fun in making new art from old things. You really have to get creative when making something new from something old and be able to envision what you're looking at as potential to be something else. My brothers have tons of old skateboards that they don't use anymore so I asked to borrow one that was in pretty rough shape. Here's what I started with...

First step was to get rid of the wheels and the rusty parts that went with them.

Using some good ole fashioned elbow grease I sanded the skateboard down til the original artwork was gone and the surface was smooth.

After that I primed, dried, primed, dried, painted, dried, painted again!

Now for the fun part! Time to give the board some new art. Thank God for Sharpie Paint Pens! I also put new screws in place of the old ones and painted them black to match. 

After everything was dry I stretched some artists wire across the back and hooked it onto the screws so that I would be able to hang it up.

And here we are... 

Before and After

Backyard Snowboard Park

One of my favorite things to do in the wintertime is to go snowboarding. I learned how to snowboard my freshman year in college when I took a trip to Colorado. A great place to learn for sure! As the seasons went by I gained a little more skill and confidence I started to try out the terrain parks. I felt like I wasn't able to get to the mountain enough to get better at the park so I decided that I would bring the park to me. I figured if I could have a little terrain park in my backyard that I could practice whenever I want. And so began the construction of my (very heavy) snowboard box.

The first thing on my materials list was a sheet of High Density Polyethylene. It's kind of similar to plexiglass but more durable for this project and it doesn't rough up your snowboard. I bought a sheet that was 1/2in thick and 2ft x 8ft, so as you can imagine that was really fun to transport home... sike! After that I picked up some 2x8's, 2x2's, pressure treated plywood, nails, and screws, and handles.

I got this structure together finally, but it was quite the project. I thought I'd be able to just screw all these pieces together and bingo bango all done. Not so. Though those big pieces of lumber seem straight and sturdy but they can bend! Not an extreme amount but they did start to curl up on me and I had to really use my muscles to hold those suckers down to screw them together.

After that I nailed the plywood sheets to the structure on the top and sides (not necessary for the bottom). To make transportation a little easier I added handles to both sides of the box. I also added hinges to the plywood on one end of the box and gave it a lock so that the box could double as an outdoor storage space for sleds and other winter things.

After that was all settled I slapped that polyethylene sheet right on top and screwed it into place. Gave it it a little paint job and it was good to go. "Good to Go" turned out to be easier said than done because in true Amy form i didn't consider whether this giant structure would actually fit through the dimensions of my basement. It didn't! I then had to start a 2nd project called "Taking apart a huge shelf that is attached to my basement wall" so i could finally get it out. With a little luck, a couple of siblings, and about a centimeter of wiggle room I finally got it outside!