$5 Chair

A while ago as I was shopping at the local Restore in Pomona, I stumbled across some very sturdy $5 chairs. I texted everyone who I thought might be remotely interested in the chair but not a kind soul wanted to buy it. I on the other hand saw the potential of the sad $5 chair. Fast forward a couple of weeks while it was hidden in my mom's garage I finally had the time to refinish it. Actually, credit goes to my handy Dad. He reupholstered it for me and even brought it back to my house. I left it at my dad's house because he had the air compressor and staple gun there. I did have to buy some outdoor canvas fabric at Mylee (a local fabric store). Long story short, I got the fabric from the budget bins for $1 many moons ago.

First thing that drew me to the chair was the green leather upholstery. I'm quite picky when it comes to my makeovers. I avoid fabric reupholstery at all costs because I feel that its not clean. I can deal with wood furniture and leather stuff because I know I can just wipe it down with sani wipes and repaint/reupholster. My dad actually did the toughest part of the chair makeover which was reupholstering the chair. 

Then once the chair was at my house, I wiped it down with saniwipes, filled the imprinted flower motif with some caulk and painted it over with some left over paint. I felt the flower motif made it look outdated. 

I spent a total of maybe 15 minutes to repaint the whole chair. I was actually on a time crunch because we had to go to my mother in laws house to eat dinner. 

Once we came back from dinner, I reattached the seat to the chair and called it a day. I sanded and repainted the flower motif because you can still see it. It doesn't bother me that much anymore now since the chair feels more updated but it was an easy fix. 

This was our previous set up for Kaley's temporary bed and feeding chair. She's no longer breastfed and doesn't sleep in the playpen so that area got cleared away this weekend. 

Here's the after with our ikea curtains we recently hung up. Note my bedroom is still incomplete. I'm still missing some sort of small table or basket to go with the chair. 

tips on budget makeovers

Paint doesn't have to always cost a lot of money. I used left over paint from my previous project but for this simple chair makeover, a sample size of paint sold for $2-4 would do the trick. What I always do is get the home magazine subscriptions and inside they always have free coupons for a sample size paint. Home magazine subscriptions such as HGTV, martha stewart, etc always have them. I also only get the subscriptions if they are free. I usually score free magazine subscriptions from rewardsgold.com  or other random places such as deal news. 

Fabric deals are everywhere if you don't need a lot of fabric. Some local places such as Mylee or yardage in Montclair always have great deals on fabric for $1-2 a yard. They always have remnant pieces left from their roll and try to get rid of for cheap. 

Cost breakdown

Chair from Restore $5

black paint- free left over from previous project 

light gray outdoor fabric- $1 

Total $6

 

Not bad for a quick and easy makeover don't you think?