The other day, I made my first official by-the-yard fabric purchase. I went to Joann Fabrics in search of upholstery material to recover the seat cushions for our new dining chairs (see how I refinished the frames here). I was a little overwhelmed at first as I stood at the entrance and took in the endless fabric choices lining the walls and floor. After walking around a bit, I located the upholstery fabric section which is where I first laid eyes on this glorious sight…

It’s called Oslo Spice. And I absolutely fell in love. Hook, line, sinker. It’s modern, quirky, with just the right balance of bright and neutral colors. The small pops of white would tie in perfectly with my freshly painted chair frames, but it wasn’t too much white to where I would be worried about constant stains. Then, I looked at the price (cue the womp-womp)… $44.99/yard. And I would need 2 yards. Even with the 40% off coupon I had, that was still about 27 bucks a yard for a grand total of $54 plus tax for 2 yards of fabric. Figures that I would become enamored of fabric that I would never justify paying for. I mean, these are $8 chairs.

So, I walked around Joann in search of another option. To no avail. I just kept coming back to my birdie fabric and staring at it in despair. On a whim, I decided to check my phone to see if I could find the same fabric cheaper online. Which is when I found this…

$14/yard????!!!!!!! Shut the front door. So, I tracked down a sales associate and asked if they offer price-matching. And she said (wait for it)… YES!!! Oh, happy day!! I showed her the online listing and she happily cut me 2 yards of my beloved fabric and assigned it the total price of $28 buckaroos. Heck. Yeah. I figure it never hurts to ask, and this time it was so completely worth it.

So, I headed home in a haze of bliss with my sexy fabric in tow.

Now, it was time to recover. I think the trickiest part was determining which part of the fabric to center on the seat. I just played around with it until I liked it, then cut the fabric leaving a few inches of excess material for stapling.

Now for the fun part. I grabbed our staple gun and started in the middle of the top, stapled, then pulled the fabric taut and stapled the same spot on the opposite side on the bottom.

I turned over the cushion to be sure the pattern was centered. Then, I did the same thing with the left and right sides… one staple in the middle, then double-checking the front for centeredness.

Then, I just worked from the middle staple out until I reached the corner, stapling the top, then the opposite spot on the bottom, pulling tightly each time. Then, I repeated this on the left and right sides. The corners took a little experimentation. I just tugged, folded, and stapled until I had a nice smooth result. When I was finished, it looked like this…

I trimmed the excess, flipped it over and admired my cushion….

Then, I moved onto the other 5 cushions (which took about a week to crank out… Alas, I have a toddler.). When I was done, I took them into the backyard, laid them on an old sheet and Scotch-Garded them (again, toddler).

Aaaannnd drumroll please!! Here is the final result….

I mean, how darn cute are they?? Seriously!! And a little “before” action for comparison…

And here’s a “before” of our dining area…

And here it is now….

We’re absolutely LOVING it. The chairs really perk up the area and make it feel more fun and casual. And I’m not gonna lie. I’ve totally made extra trips past the table just to smile at it. All that hard work was completely worth it. As you can see, we decided to only use 4 of the chairs at the table (five looked kind of busy). I stuck a leather chair at the head of the table for some contrast, and while I like it, I’m playing with the idea of replacing it with something along these lines….

…from World Market (And Target recently).  Or maybe this from Ikea…. (Which they also have in green…hmmm…)…

And check this out….

That’s a lily stalk from the flowers that Joey brought home in this post. All of his floral siblings went to the giant flowermart in the sky weeks ago, yet this guy is still truckin’ THREE WEEKS later. Yeah. I’ll have what he’s having.

Anyhoo, as for the other two chairs, we stuck them under the sofa table for the time being….

I’m not sure I’m totally digging them there yet. It just seems like a bunch of chairs in one small area to me between these two, the dining chairs and barstools, but we’ll live with them there for a while before making a final decision. I would actually love to see some kind of nifty upholstered (Or woven?) bench under this table one day. I guess we’ll see what [shopping] dreams may come!

So, here’s an approximate cost breakdown for these chairs:

6 chairs- $48
Oops! spray paint- $10
White paint- already owned
Primer- already owned
Fabric- $30 (estimated with tax)
Wood filler- already owned
Sandpaper- already owned
Shellac primer (for the two repainted chairs) – $14

Total- $102 (Or ~$17 per chair)

Not too shabby for six one-of-a kind chairs! Plus, once we sell our leather chairs, we’ll likely make this back plus some (which will then go into the next project… heehee!). Love you, Craigslist. Kisses!