This faux roman shade is not completed yet, so it looks a little wonky. I still have the folds pinned and plan to finish it as soon as I can find the time.
***I am NOT a professional seamstress as you can tell by the close-ups of this picture. ha!
We've been on a fixed budget for exactly 5 years and 6 months. You can do the math. Staying home is wonderful, but sometimes I just get tired of waiting to save up for a professional to hire and I get a wild hair that I will just have to do it by myself. I have had lots of hits and misses, but this project was a great success (in my humble opinion ;). I inherited several chairs when my parents downsized to a smaller house and while I LOVE antiques, I just felt that this chair could be changed for the better. It wasn't until I found the perfect fabric that I made the decision to tackle this project. I can't say it was EASY, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be either. This chair was OLD. I mean, it still had the original horse hair packed inside that carpenters and upholsterers used many, many years ago. I REALLY WISH I WOULD HAVE TAKEN PICTURES OF THE INSIDE AND THE STEPS TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN, BUT I WASN'T EVEN THINKING ABOUT BLOGGING ABOUT THIS SO I WILL JUST HAVE TO DESCRIBE THE STEPS.
1. I removed the gimp (which is the decorative ribbonish looking thing surrounding the fabric), the fabric and pulled out at LEAST 100 old, rusty nails.
2. Removed the layers of cloth, horse hair and lastly the burlap covering the wires and vacuumed out the inches of dust it had collected over the years.
3. Cut out the old hemp looking string that had broken down over the years and retied down the wires in the seat area to make them as even as possible.
4. Recovered the wires with new burlap.
5. Added a foam cushion to level out the wires. They were still a little uneven and bumpy.
6. Put a new quilt batting (I think that's what it's called) on top of the foam so it wouldn't look so squared. I did all of this with a staple gun and left the front open to add pillow foam inside to even it out even more. I can't remember the exact name, but it's the huge bag of what looks like cotton and I bought this at Walmart. It came with a wooden stick to push in tight spaces. When I had all of the empty spaces filled, I staple gunned the rest down.
7. I made a pattern using the old fabric and stapled gunned the new fabric around the edge of the wood. This took a few tries to get it pulled tightly and even, but it was easy to pull the staples out.
8. I used a hot glue gun to add the chocolate brown gimp all around the fabric for a finished look. I'm so pleased with the results.
9. I used the remaining fabric to make a "faux roman shade" for my back door, which is still incomplete. I still have it pinned in places because I wanted to look at it awhile to see if I liked the folds.
10. I also made a simple covering for my window over the sink. My mom and I bought a few more yards of the same fabric this weekend so I can make a few pillows for my couch and some ties for my panels to complete the look.
*****Here's a sneak pic of my next chair recovering project that I'm working on now. It is alot easier because I don't have to completely redo the chair. I'm just covering over the old velvet fabric.
