Upcycling... well.... "Trash"

I have a great mother.  She was always finding fun activities for us to do when we were growing up, and it almost always involved a creative project.  Coloring refrigerator boxes to be play houses, building tree houses, painting old pieces of wood and lots of coloring books, this was my childhood.  Something my mother has passed on to me is the joy of "upcycling."  Upcycling is a new term meaning creating a better purpose for something that is no longer of use or in this case liked.  Growing up we called it "picking up good trash."  Recently we just finished installing our kitchen banquet seating. (Check it out here!) I finally got the booth I wanted but I was missing a couple of chairs to fit around the table.  I searched high and low for affordable chairs but I couldn't find anything I wanted to spend money on.  The upside of "upcycling" is that you do not have to buy anything brand new you use what you have and you make it better!  When I told my mother what I was looking for she said she would keep an eye out. 

Later on that week my dad sent me this picture....  Can you believe that someone would put solid wood chairs and a table out on the side of the road!?  Me either. They grabbed me the two chairs I needed just in time.  

I took the cushions off the chairs and prepped the chairs for painting.  The wood was nice but it would not go with my light and delicate look for my kitchen.  I prepped the chairs by wiping them down and removing all of the hardware.  One chair had a small hole in the side and I filled it with simple wood fill. 

After putting couple coats of my paint on I was ready to reattach the cushions.  I used Behr aqua smoke for the paint on these chairs.  To cover the chairs I bought two yards of fabric from my local hobby lobby store.  This is a canvas fabric so that it is more durable.  You will also need a staple gun.  I love mine! Best craft investment ever!

The cushions on these chairs were gross and stained.  One of the cushions even had magic marker colored all over it.  I scrubbed the cushions down with a detergent mix to clean them up a bit.  

I cut the fabric to the same measurement of the chair plus an inch on each side to be sure I had enough fabric.  If you are acquainted with upholstery then you might not need as much all the way around.  

After covering my seat I was ready to reattach to the chair. These chairs still had the hardware with them so it was a simple reattachment with the screws and a Philips head screwdriver. 

Boom!  Awesome upcycle and with minimum investment.  This chair redo would definitely make mamma proud. 

SNEAK PEEK!  Look what I found this week....

Banquet Seating for a Small Kitchen

When we first started house shopping we were looking for a house with a little bit of character.  What we finally decided on was a home with some character, but then again 75 years is a lot of character. One of the little jewels of our home is the kitchen that hasn't been touched since the house was built.  We have been slowly renovating our kitchen and we finally got to the seating!  I have really been wanting a kitchen nook.  A cozy place to write, read, and drink coffee.  

This is before....

We have been working on the kitchen for months including pulling out the old floor, counter tops and more but the banquet seating is my favorite addition! The corner was already empty dead space so it was simple for me to tape off where I wanted the booth installed.  I had an idea of what the booth would look like but I definitely needed Travis' help and tools. The first big step was going to Home Depot for the materials.  

We saved a lot of time by writing down our measurements and having home depot cut the pieces for us.  The first few cuts are free and after that it was only $0.25 a cut!  Good deal!  Travis built the frame and attached the backer board to the wall for me.  

He started by building a frame out of  2 x 4's and attached backer board to the wall to give the booth more definition.  To seal the cracks in the backer board we used simple painters caulk.

Adding the trim was very time consuming but definitely gave it a completed look.  Next came my part. Painting!  We have a deal he builds I paint! Totally worth it. 

I used Behr paint Aqua Smoke on the backer board and just simple white on the trim.

 I originally wanted to be able to open the top of the booth for storage but that was a little out of the skill set of my carpenter. 

So I decided that a solid top would work just as well and save us some time and trips back to home depot.  After a couple days of staining, painting, and building its done!

I did not want to add cushions but a few pillows made it feel homey and soft.  I am so excited to have it built! I was finally able to move the chandelier over the table and so were all of our visitors over 6 feet tall. 

After all the hard work its great to have the booth ready to use.  I got really lucky and found the table on the side of the road (free!) and painted it with the leftover paint from our kitchen walls.