I heart upcycling.

Upcycling: the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

After last week's upcycled patio chairs, I was really eager for more. Except I didn't have anything to re-do. Our adventure to Hastings was great fun, but I did not find the captain's chair I have been longing for. Well, technically I did, but someone else had already upcycled it by painting it orange, throwing a black/orange Halloween fabric on the chair pad and tried to sell it to me for $54. Nope.

Louis was bound and determined to help me find this chair (I love my husband). A captain's chair is what you would commonly see at the head of a dining room table--a basic chair, but with arms. I also required that mine have some kind of chair pad I could reupholster. Given that for every set of dining room chairs out there, only one was a captain's, I realized my odds. And struck out at our tried and true antique stores in the Mall of St. Paul.

Until this past Thursday. Our colleague, Fawn, was having a garage sale. She's the only person I know to hold a pre-sale with cocktails, so we were in. And lo and behold, among a dining room set was a captain's chair! Victory! I convinced her to split it up from it's sibling chairs and couldn't wait to get it home.

This chair is going in our bedroom. Right there in the corner. Do I plan to sit on it? Maybe. Do I plan to pile clothes and other things on it. All the time.

Still, it doesn't match. Okay, for you painting wood naysayers, look at that--natural wood is fine for the dining room, but the trim is already painted white upstairs!

Something had to be done about this.

So we picked up some paint in Cottage White (that's pretty much screaming out, "buy me!" with a name like that!). Should I have primed it? Yes. But three coats of paint and one terrible Netflix rental (not to be named) later...





I still had to recover the chair pad. Surprise! Here's what I found when I took the old fabric off (which I have to admit, I really liked, but it was worn and dirty): old foam covering a duct-taped chair. I'm wondering if the tan vinyl were the original coverings and more recently the green fabric and foam had been added. Anyhow, I replaced it with new blue paisley fabric and a new piece of foam, thanks to my trusty staple gun. :)




And here it is--the big reveal! C'mon, doesn't that white just make the blue paisley cover pop? And it fits in so nicely with the already-painted trim (AND those lovely new bedroom curtains I made!).


In case you need a side-by-side review: the debate of painting wood versus not painting wood will rage on. You know where I stand.