Leather Chair Redo

I am so blessed to have a husband that will antique and project with me. As I write this, Mr. Bill is doing something in the yard we cooked up. Bless his heart, he is doing all the physical labor himself. I can't wait to show you what he has been up to. I have been working on something in the house. Until both of those are ready for a reveal, we need to pull something out of the past. The reality of it is, that we can't cook something up twice a week and keep spending what we are spending for me to blog. So every once in a while we are going to have to pull some old projects out of our photography archives to show you. In 2008 we went on a trip down to Cat Spring, Tx. We stayed at a place called BlissWood Bed and Breakfast. It was this wonderful place with a lot of acreage, animals and cute cabins to stay in. Here are some pictures Bill took. I love these photos!

You can see that I have used the crusty wood one for my button.

We stayed in the writers cabin.
Mr. Bill and I take periodic trips away just the two of us. It makes for a happy marriage. :) 
Looking at those makes me want to go back!

We used Cat Spring as our home base, but went further out to go antiquing.

Mr. Bill found this chair. 

It was $40.00.

Now over the years he had seen me rip apart some furniture to recover it. 

Now he was ready to tackle a piece on his own.

He went to Tandy leather and got a couple of small hides. Enough to recover it.

When he took it apart he realized he had to rebuild the frames that would hold the leather.

He rebuilt an exact replica to both pieces, but you could use plywood  and that is what I would have done since I don't have his mad skills. 

The springs were coming up in odd places. 

He took it all apart and retied every spring.

Now he did not just use any knot. He used the knots that he found when he took it all apart. Actually this photograph is probably one he took before he untied the knots. So he would know how to tie them again. A great idea when you are taking a part something to reupholster it.

I helped him tack the leather to the chair. 

I love that it has the brand. We used it as a focal point.

He went back later and added upholstery tacks. We couldn't use the tacks from the leather craft store. They were not sturdy enough. He actually visited an upholstery shop and bought some. They were easier to apply but we still had to drill tiny pilot holes.  

Here is what she looks like all finished.

I love the back!

Here it is in a different room. In front of our door to nowhere. 

I love that it is so versatile.

I love that it is a very masculine chair, but it has the feminine curves to the top and back. 
I can put it in just about any room in our house and it coordinates. 
I hope you enjoyed one of our oldie but goodie projects highlighting one of my husbands DIY's.
Don't over look leather when you are thinking about recovering a piece. It was about $40.00 for the hide. It was an inexpensive alternative to upholstery fabric.
I will have to tell you about the door to nowhere.
Mr. Bill was going to make a coffee table out of it, but changed his mind. I will highlight that project another day! 

Katie

Linking with A Bowl Full Of Lemons. On Project At A Time Link Party
Wow Us Wednesday @ Savvy Southern Style
thebrambleberrycottage- time-travel-thursday

&frenchcountrycottage.-feathered-nest-friday
&Decorating Insanity: Furniture Friday
&Vintage Inspiration Friday @ Common Ground
&funky junk interiors sat-nite-special-123-link-party.
I love to visit these fun parties.

The Blog!

The blog is a little over a month old. I am tickled that I have had almost 500 people look at my site. I'm annoyed by the people from Russia who are probably trying to find out information about me so they can scam me, but to them I say. "I am just a lowly preschool teacher, I deal with poop and pee almost on a daily basis. My identity is not really one you want to steal unless of course I fulfill my dream of winning or just being on "Dancing With The Stars."" I am one step closer to that dream if I become famous for this blog or I win the reality show I have created called "Last Pre-School Teacher Standing."
As a contestant on my reality show, early childhood teachers  have to win series of challenges. Like the "juice box challenge" where they have to open 10 juice boxes in the shortest amount of time. Or how about the mandarin orange challenge where teachers have to open those little cups of mandarin oranges without spilling a single drop. (Try it, those things are tough to open.)  Today was the "Gogurt Challenge." If you twist those little sucky tubes of yogurt they will open if twisted hard enough. Can you tell most of the challenges involve opening food for a table of hungry, not quite self sufficient little ones?
There are oodles of other challenges and obstacles, but most of them involve bodily fluids so I don't think you want to hear about those. It would be a "Fear Factor" meets "Survivor" kind of thing. It has potential, right?
But enough about that. I just love blogging. I should have been doing this years ago. The things I write about for you are every day occurrences around here. What I have realized by chronicling this past 6 weeks is that this is how Bill and I really live. We are always in the midst of projects. I love it when I find before pictures on my computer for one of my posts. Most of the time I'm so excited about my projects I forget to photograph them. And Rebekah says that I always say "It will be awesome." about something I am working on.
So in the days to come, I can't wait to show you what else we have been up to at the manor. My profile states that we are DIYers. But we are also proponents of "don't do it yourself" "DDIY" I will be honest about projects that are just better left to the professionals. I am excited about doing a post about the 5 best and 5 worst decorating mistakes we have made. Oh, and I can't wait for gardening season.

Have a blessed day,
Sprinkled with humor,
Katie