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The REAL Dining Chair Before & After

Let’s just say I’ve learned my lesson about doing things right the first time. I’m really going to make an effort to stop trying to take shortcuts, because they seldom work out for me.

Remember my dining chair “makeover” disaster from last week? Well I redid it, and this time I didn’t take shortcuts. I cut the wood for the seat so that it was the right size, I cut the fabric for the welt cord on the bias like it’s supposed to be (FYI, it was actually pretty easy, and it makes a huge difference!!), and I took the time to do all of the other steps carefully. I’m very pleased with the result.

Reupholstered dining chair with welt cord and buttons

You probably noticed that the fabric is yellow…not orange like I had intended. Well, let’s just say I had quite an adventure in fabric dying.

I started out with regular ‘ole cotton duck in white and had the brilliant idea that I could dye it to the perfect shade of orange. And I did. It was PERFECT.

The problem was that it was a bit splotchy because I dyed it by hand. So I thought I could just run back to the store, get another bottle of dye, and run it through the washer this time to get an even finish.

The problem?

They no longer carry the color I was using. So I thought I could mix my own by using a package of orange and a package of yellow. Well that turned out looking VERY orange. As in, fiery sunset orange. As in, something close to this…

My perfect shade of orange was gone, and now I had that. Not quite what I envisioned. 😀

I didn’t panic. I just thought maybe I could run it through the wash again, and add some bleach to tone down the color considerably.

It toned it down, alright! I ended up with yellow fabric!  I honestly don’t understand how that even happened, but it did.  I wish I had taken pictures of each of the colors so you could see that I’m not exaggerating…and possibly explain to me how the heck that happened with just a little bit of bleach!

I’m really okay with the yellow fabric.  It looks a bit more vibrant in person than what’s showing up in these pictures.

And in case you forgot how this chair started out, here’s the before and after chair side-by-side.

And here’s a comparison of last week’s failed attempt, compared to this week’s much improved attempt. You can see how last week, the seat just has a frumpy look. The fabric has gathers in it, the welt cord has wrinkles and puckers because I didn’t take the time to cut the fabric on the bias, and the seat is just too big for the chair frame with it upholstered in that style. (Before, it had a wrap-and-staple style seat, so the larger seat size was fine.)

So, at least in my mind, this is a DIY success!! Perhaps my FAIL streak has been broken.

I’ll be sharing how to cover a dining chair seat using welt cord, but that will be a separate post. I’ll also be sharing the super easy method for cutting continuous bias that will make just under 8 yards of welt cord with 1/2 yard of fabric.

So how was your weekend? Did you get any projects finished up that you’ve been working on? Any DIY FAILS that you had to go back and correct?


 
This project was for my condo breakfast room makeover. Click here to see the whole before and after of the breakfast room makeover.

Or click on the thumbnails below to see other DIY projects that I did for my condo breakfast room makeover.

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9 Comments

  1. I love how the chair(s) turned out! I think the yellow tone looks like a happy accident, it really looks great with the paint color. I can’t wait for your how to post on covering dining chairs, I’ve been wanting to do something along those lines to my own dining chairs. 🙂

  2. I like the yellow with the blue better than the orange anyway, so I think your fail turned success really works.

    BTW, if you do still want orange, you can buy fabric spray dye from KeelingKrafts – she did an entire couch with it!

  3. When you set your mind to something you do it right! Wow, Kristi the chair looks GREAT and so much better than the last version. The side by side photos really helped see what you were upset about last week.

    I am getting farther and farther behind on my projects. I had to get my xmas stuff and all of my kid’s boxes out of storage and they all sit squarely in my cute little loft. I am going to consolidate everything and get rid of some of it, hopefully that will solve my space problem. I wish my kids would just come and get all of their stuff so I don’t have to store it for them! Three kids times three lives of memories can add up to a lot of stuff!

  4. Ha, I know the inspiration chair had the orange seat but I *really* like the yellow you came up with in the end – however it may have come about! In my mind, yellow and blue are a pretty solid combo!