I've always wanted to dumpster dive. That probably sounds so weird to some of you lovely readers! But it's true. I only heard about dumpster diving after I left the states. A few of my friends have been dumpster diving in Ohio for quite some time and they've gotten some of the coolest things! Not to mention it supplements the groceries. Seriously! Unopened, one-day expired food! It's amazing!
But this is not about eating food. This is about finding treasures! Our family is big into second hand shopping. We have a few favorite shops, and we all call each other when we go second-handing to tell each other if there's something good somewhere. It's pretty great! Lately though, we've taken to checking out dump sites. It sounds so much worse than it is! Ha!
People for some reason like to take perfectly good things to place in the woods or maybe near a construction site and leave them. We have found entire leftovers from estate sales and whatnot there - and some really interesting furniture. Last week, we picked up a walnut coffee table that can convert into a full sized dining table. It's really fabulous.
This week, we found 5 matching chairs. One was broken so we left it, but the other four looked like this:
Most of the chairs were just dirty, and 3 of them had the cushions removed. I'm not exactly sure why! It looks likes someone tried to glue the cushions onto the chairs rather than just using the screws and screwing them into place... the mind boggles.
The chairs were originally a beige/tan color and were all about this level of dirty:
No smell, no real stains even! I could have washed them, to be perfectly honest. But no. I had other plans. Our kitchen area is red themed with little hints of teal, so I wanted something to really match!
One sacrificed tablecloth later and voila!
I realized that the chair I chose for the photo was my first cushion re-do, and as such the pattern on the fabric was not entirely straight - but oh well. We're sitting on them, not staring at them! The rest are good though.
I got this "tablecloth" at a second hand shop for something like 5 crowns - which is like buying something for $.50. It was just a bit of fabric with three edges turned under and hemmed, and still had the selvage.
Well... now it's chair cushions.
And much better for it!
The whole project took about an hour. First, I laid out the tablecloth and checked that I had enough fabric for the job. Then I laid the cushions out on the fabric and cut around them with pinking shears, giving enough space to wrap the fabric around to the bottom of each side of the cushion.
I didn't remove the old covers because they weren't smelly at all, and really not that dirty. I just gave them a little wipe down then covered over them. I used a hammer tacker to staple the stretched fabric to the bottom of the cushions then used the same screws that came inside the chairs (all the original screws were inside their holes, just waiting to be used!) to screw the cushions back onto the frame. Easy peasy!
Have you done any quick up-cycle projects lately?
