From "Blah" to "Ta-Da!": Aunt Gladys' Chair Makeover

This chair has been sitting in the Mister's parents basement for years (and years).

Apparently she belonged to the Mister's Aunt Gladys (who I think was his dad's sister). He remembers her sitting and looking out the window for hours, from this chair. But unfortunately, she (the chair, not Aunt Gladys) was a full-on Monet (quick! Which movie?). It was lovely from a distance, but up close it was faded and chippy.

Which is really a shame, because the crewelwork pattern and colors were lovely. The frame appears to be finished wood, but it's actually painted brown and I detest anything brown that is not: wood, leather, or an animal. Ick.

Actually, it's lucky the seat needed to be re-covered, because when I took off the fabric I found this:

It was four layers worth of snapped, brittle 1/16 in. plywood.

So I cut a new seat base from 1/2 in. plywood we had on hand using the Mister's jigsaw:

And I painted the chair with Rustoleum's Semi-Gloss Black:

I ran out of spray paint and didn't want to make a 30 mile trip to Home Depot. 

I couldn't get anything small enough through the holes in the frame to mark the new seat for screws, so I taped the seat in place and stuck a really long drill bit in the holes:

I cut a new piece of 2 in. foam that I had left over from the last chair:

I sprayed both the foam and the seat base with Krylon Easy-Tack (just to make it easier to work with, so it wasn't sliding around) and wrapped the whole thing in a layer of batting (that I also had from the first chair and then two layers (because you could see through the first) of my fabric of choice, the Lenda Bleached curtains from Ikea:

I love the pinstriped detail, the color, and the price! It's a lovely neutral without being too beige or too white or too cream. It's not permanent, just until I can pick a fabric or at least figure out where this chair is going to live.

So here's the before again:

BEFORE

and the

AFTER

With my lovely Halloween pillows from LilyBethGoodies on etsy

I just love the detail on this chair:

What have you made over lately?

I'm linking up to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch.