A Much Needed Chair

As the past few weeks have had me concentrating on my new dietary requirements, I have been putting a crafting on a back seat – but this week I am back.

For over a month now I have been hunting for a chair. I saw a beautiful one on the Argos website back in August – half price but currently out of stock. I waited 6 weeks before seeing it reduced again on the website (but still out of stock) so I called to see what the deal was. Apparently it’s no long available and the Argos website made a mistake.

I was a bit annoyed. I searched high and low for a chair and couldn’t find anything under £100. I couldn’t even find a bench for under £50 and this really wasn’t good enough.

Not only do I not have the money to blow on an expensive chair, but its main purpose is only to provide extra seating when guests come over. Although our sofa does fit 4 – it’s a bit of a squeeze and not exactly the most sociable way to sit (all facing the telly).

So I ditched the online shopping and headed to my local furniture charity shop. I wasn’t holding my breath – I have been looking in this shop for months for a suitable chair and can never find anything that fits what I am looking for but this time I struck gold. An old brown chair – easy enough for a novice like me to upholster, and light enough for the other half to carry home! (thanks Matt!) And to make matters even better, it cost me only £10.

Look at it. It’s screaming out for a makeover.

But let me tell you now that I really am a novice. I have never even attempted anything like this before so I just had to guess. And I was also told that I wasn’t allowed to use ‘really girlie fabric’, so with both those things in mind, I got a plain(ish) fabric. That was textured enough to feel like a chair should, plain enough to not annoy the male who also lives with me, coloured enough as to not show bits of dirt that may happen upon it (it has flecks of bright colour running all the way through) and thick enough to not show through any of the previous fabric (I decided to keep the original fabric on there as the cushion was disintegrating inside, and the soft brown fabric also added extra cushioning.)

I couldn’t wait until morning to get some nice pictures in the day light so I spent my Friday night getting down to business with my sewing machine. It worked very, very well.

And it worked first time! It actually fit. I couldn’t believe it and started to annoy Matthew by interrupting him constantly to say *it’s really working!!!*

Because the new fabric was grey, I had to half assemble the chair to tell myself it didn’t look the same as it did before. And I was right.

But it still needed a bit more work and a bit more colour. So as I didn’t have any more fabric to make a bright new cushion I thought I’d just use one I already had.

The result? Ta da!

Okay, so not the most incredible chair you’ve ever seen in your life, and definitely not the most complicated but I quite like that I’ve just proven to myself that you don’t need to be a craft genius to get a new chair for a few quid.

All in all, that chair cost me £18. Less than a fifth of what I could find in the shops, and 10 times more comfortable than a stool. It sits happily in its corner, and I think I might just treat it to a floor lamp and turn it into a little reading area.

So there you have it. A beginner's chair that was really not difficult in the slightest and took a mere 4 hours.