A long time ago I had a piano teacher that told me it took 21 days to break a bad habit. At the time, it was not practicing the piano. I think my almost complete lack of skills in playing piano is a testament to how much that conversation impacted the 12-year old me...
Now we're talking about a bad blogging habits.
Tim and I spending the holidays with family overseas and it is my goal to break this bad habit before then. That means that I ::crossyourfingers:: should have a post up everyday until our trip. WISH ME LUCK!
Day 1: The Perfect Chair
For a while now we've been talking about converting a little nook in our living room into a desk area. I set Tim with the task of making the desk happen and while he did that, I scoured the internet for a chair. I was aiming for something like this...
That wasn't, you know, almost $700.
So, we began searching our local thrift stores and craigslist. (Oh, Dear Lord. There are some oo-gly pieces of furniture out there!)
Then one day, Tim dragged me to the local Goodwill to search for a random computer cable (side note: Goodwill is the best place to find inexpensive and random computer cords). I was very casually looking through the doors to the collection area when...there it was. The chair.
I grabbed the first person to come out and practically hounded him with information about when it would be put on the floor. At first he looked at me with an "are you kidding?" face (you'll see why in a minute) and then turned around and went to ask about it. When he came back out, he informed me that the chair would not be sold. Here's the gist of the conversation that followed:
Me: Why?
Clerk: Sorry, the chair is broken. We don't sell broken furniture.
Me: What will happen to it?
Clerk: We usually throw them out.
Me: WHAT!? Can you please check? What's wrong with it? Maybe I can fix it!
Clerk: Fine, let me go ask.
Me: Wait impatiently while clerk talks to collection area manager.
Clerk: (Comes out with chair in hand) It looks like the legs are loose.
Me: TIMMY! COME HERE! Can you fix this?!?!?
Timmy: (Rambles over and looks at it) Um, yeah?
Me: (To clerk) Can we buy it? Please? (Smile real cute.)
Clerk: Sure, you can have it for $2.50.
$2.50
Shoppers were literally staring at us as Tim carried it over to pay. I think it was because they were jealous of our sweet chair! Or blinded...either one.
Yes. It is orange. And velvet.
The sad part...it actually didn't look too bad in our room. AND it's not too far off from what I was originally looking for in a chair.
After finding our little gem, it was time to de-velvetize. Unfortunately, we didn't get many pictures of this infuriating process. But I can't promise any of them would have been appropriate either. Those little bast...I mean...staples are a pain to get out.
After stripping it down, Tim was able to fix the legs without too much trouble. We sanded it down, painted it a pearlescent white, and add a new seat cushion.
Of course, now we had to find fabric. The chair probably sat like this for a few weeks while we debated fabric swatches and contemplated special ordering something. Our biggest challenge was bringing in some color to match the slate tiles surrounding our fireplace. Things were either too blue or too red or too gray or on and on and on...
I was browsing our local Joann's one day when I decided to check out the upholstery clearance section. (I have had some excellent luck searching clearance before.) And there it was. A brand new bolt of fabric, just waiting for me.
I brought a sample home to Tim and he agreed, we had found it! And it was on CLEARANCE! Hallelujah!
Too bad that's when we entered, what I dubbed, Upholstery Hell. Really, it was only hell for me. I think Tim actually enjoyed it, once we agreed that I would never try to help him again. I do not have the patience to do upholstery. Give me a screwdriver and some pliers and I'll rip the stuff off like a pro, but as soon as you ask me to start making patterns or checking for symmetry, I'm outta there!
At the end of the day (or months), Tim did a fantastic job putting it all together, but you'll have to stay tuned for our finished product...
And, just because it's awesome, here's our Hershey, PA nativity scene...
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