Saturday, August 2, 2008

An Office Chair Gets Reborn.

No Silly! The office chair hasn't accepted Jesus, or maybe it has and I just don't know because I didn't ask.

Anyway, everyone that knows me knows that I have been moaning and groaning about sitting in that godawful kitchen chair whilst doing my computerly things. It was really starting to get uncomfortable- strangely, this did not limit my time on the computer. Well, yet again How About Orange has inspired me- by helping me to stumble upon this post at Curbly. So, on the magical day off that I got last week for no reason at all, I went thrift store shopping for a desk chair to cover. The Children's Cancer Something Or Other Thrift Store had nothing. But Cobwebs, my new favorite store, had just the thing. Behold, in all it's two toned chocolate corporate cheapo dookie glory:


So with the chair packed in the trunk by the nice Cobwebs man (the South really can be a nice place to live sometimes- chivalry is alive and well here) I toddled off to GDC Home where I got this lovely stuff on sale for $6 a yard. See, even the ever-expanding (note the pot belly!) Charlie Cat approves:


So NOT ME AT ALL, but perfect for how I am envisioning my office, and I like that it is more foliage than actual flowers. And the flowers that are on it are massive and orange, with those odd primrose cluster flower thingies thrown in. I even like those. But yeah, I love leaves and trees and stuff like that, but not huge on flowers.

So I cranked up the Buddy Guy album I raved about last week or so, and got busy. Charlie did not really approve though, because he covered the speakers with his giant self and supervised the whole thing:



Well it was long and hard and involved a few extra trips to Home Depot but it is done and it is utterly fantastic!

here is the point in the blog where I impart some wisdom so that you don't make the same mistakes I did. When shopping for your fun old-but-soon-to-be-better-than-ever desk chair, pay attention to the construction. If you don't the bottom of your chair will come off like a dream and the top may prove to be incredibly difficult. It may just not separate from the wood grain textured plastic, like mine. However, if you find that it doesn't, don't despair. I despaired and it wasn't necessary. Especially once I tried out some heavy duty spray adhesive I just so happened to have on hand. Lots of spraying, careful folding and a dash of profanity- and look! Almost looks like the real thing!

That up there is the top of the back cushion for the chair. It looks like it was made that way, doesn't it! Well, it wasn't. I folded the edges, glued the hell out of it, and wonder of wonders, it worked! I love glue. You will notice that there are some glue boogers on the plastic portion of the chair, but they are drying and proving to be super huge fun to pick off. Remember putting glue on your hands and peeling it off when you were in elementary school? It's like that. Only better somehow.

Project Stats:
Chair: $12
Fabric: $6
Lunch at Chick-fil-A: $5-ish
Length of Time: 2 to 3 hours (it should not take you this long if you don't have major troubleshooting issues like me and just skip right to the spray adhesive.

I am SERIOUSLY considering spray painting the non-fabricy parts of the chair orange like those flowers. How fun would that be?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holly, that is adorable! And yes, paint it orange!!! I love it!!

Lynn

Ricë said...

i love this! like my recovered office chair, but better colors!