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A couple of weeks ago, I had my four girls with me and we were headed to pick up our weekly milk supply from a local farmer and then headed on to a flea market. We were all excited to find treasures that day.
FUN TIMES
Down the back country road, we headed to get our milk, and then I spotted a "Garage Sale" sign. Uh oh. I don't stop at every one of these (though I would if I could), but I knew since this was off the beaten path there could possibly be a steal. When driving with a 6-mo. old baby, you have only a limited amount of non-fuss time and I really didn't know if I should stop. It could mean diaper changes, nursing time...you know the routine. Plus, my girls didn't want to miss out on the flea market. What to do, what to do?!
I continued on past a couple more houses to get to the farm where we get our milk. It wasn't until on our way back that I decided to stop. Boy, am I glad I did. SCORE!
This place was the best garage sale I ever set foot in, at least for a picker like me. Furniture, rusty antique tools, bits & bobbles to feast your eye on! (I've been kicking myself for not taking pictures, just so you know.) Not only were there crazy good finds, but they were asking practically nothing for their items.
Check out this box of antique table legs. This is one of 3 boxes of legs that were in a barrel for $10. wow.
Among my other finds, including a table, chair, chicken feeders, a steamer trunk, etc. (too much to list), were a couple of identical feed sacks that had been hand stitched together....for $1. YES!!
SCORE
Needless to say, my suburban was full to the brim with children and goodies. I had maxed out my flea budget so it was home we went. I was giddy to say the least, but my girls were somewhat disappointed. They knew it was all good and were excited for me, but had really wanted to go to the flea. No worries. We went the next weekend to make up for it.
Those feed sacks sat for a couple of weeks while I worked on other projects, and I wasn't quite inspired yet on what to do with them.
I considered mounting them on frames for wall hangings or creating a bag. Nothing really jumped out at me until I joined up with a fantastic group of ladies who do a monthly themed furniture makeover. This month's theme is words and/or letters. bingo.
DIY TIME
I have had this pair of chairs since baby was born six months ago, and they had been taking up space for quite some time. Upholstering is fun but also can be daunting at times because you just never know what lies beneath that fabric.
Isn't that upholstery horrid?
No one liked to sit on these because that fabric had the texture of indoor/outdoor carpet. They scratched the back of your legs, but everyone agreed they were comfy otherwise and pretty to look at.
It was my pleasure to relieve the chair of its awful skin.
Although the frame of the chair was in pretty good condition, it wouldn't fit the picture in my head of the finished product. So, I grab my paint brush and give it a whitewash then heavily distress. We're going for rustic farmhouse, right?
CUTTING
Now for the dressing up. Can I just say that it took me a minute to bite the bullet and cut those sacks. I almost had to close my eyes to do it.
See the hand stitching where they were joined end to end?
It was pretty tricky figuring out the layout of how these two sacks were going to cover the chair. Like most times, when I remove the old fabric, I keep it to use as a guide to know rough cut lines. Since these sacks were not that wide, I had to offset them on the cushions to make them cover. I kind of like it in that makeshift way - like they would have "made do" ages ago.
THE REVEAL
So, what do you think? Pretty fun makeover I'd say.
The distressing came out just like I had envisioned.
The chair has so much more character with it's time worn touches...even the smudges and wear.
Like I said, it's fun when pieces come together and the way the story unfolds is half of joy I get of doing what I do.
Once I put this feed sack chair in my online store, it didn't last long. It was a bit hard to let go of this one, but I do know that there will be others, Lord willing.
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