The Summer Rehab Project

I saw these chairs that my friend Germaine had sitting out by her garage to get rid of on big trash day. I’d drive by on a fairly regular basis and wonder if she was going to use them or get rid of them. We had moved back into our remodeled house and had no decks built off the back of the house so we didn’t really have any place to put the chairs anyway. That didn’t stop me from thinking about those chairs and what they could look like all fixed up. Luckily, one day I ran into her husband, Lee, and asked if I they were going to use them or if I could have them. He said he would check with the boss. A little bit later they showed up at our house, which is just down the street. And the chairs sat off to the side in our back yard for what seemed like years…

Earlier this summer, when I was at Joann Fabrics I found outdoor fabric (on sale) that would look great with our green slate and outdoor furniture. I bought a few yards of two different complementary patterns and the fabric sat in a project pile with a lot of other project fabric. I needed lining for a skirt and cape and while I was getting those things I found 2 inch padded foam and decided now was the time to get those chairs done. That was the end of July right before I left on a trip for a week. Greg said he could cut out the plywood for the seats while I was gone.

One weekend in August when we had no football or other practices or games, I thought now is the time to get those done. I sewed one of the fabrics into little envelopes to cover our seat cushions for our outdoor furniture. I took the foam and other fabric down to the garage and asked if Greg could cut out the plywood seats so we could finish the other chairs. He meticulously cut out the plywood for the chairs (because they weren’t all the same, in fact, each one was slightly different and he numbered them to the chairs). Once the plywood was ready, Greg used adhesive to attach the foam to each plywood seat. He compressed the foam with clamps, and then cut the foam to fit the plywood.

The fabric recovering part was easy with a staple gun and two people. We centered the striped fabric and then began stapling our way around the bottom of the chair, compressing the foam as we went. It took about an hour to do the first one and then another hour to do the next two. We were going to have the chairs sand blasted and then powder coated (to prevent rust) and then paint them a stainless steel color that matches our steel cables in the back yard, but the white looks great. We decided to leave them white for the time being because we liked how they looked.