I'm Mad at the Internet

I'm in love with the before and after shots you see all over the internet. One of the blogs I look at every day is just that, one picture of a before and one picture of an after of random people's home improvement projects.



I love seeing how people turn trash into treasure. The problem with the quick glances at other people's handy work is that it makes it awfully deceiving as to how long those projects actually take. All I see it the magic transformation. It's kind of like watching a cooking show and thinking you too can also make that meal in 30 minutes. Well, yeah, you can, if you already have everything pre measured, you can chop like a rock star, and you don't have to spend 20 minutes digging through your drawers looking for a tool that can substitute for what the professionals use.

Even the blogs that come with instructions are deceiving because they have four or five snapshots of their work with instructions and at they always end with the ubiquitous, "wah lah!" Easy as that. What they don't tell you is that there is no instant gratification refurbish project.

When refurbing a chair, specifically, no one tells you that removing the old fabric involves two hours of pulling old rusty staples out. Or, when adding the new fabric, if you are using a thirty year old staple gun you borrowed from your parents, it is going to take you ten times as long than if you just stop being so cheap and pony up the $30 it is going to take you to get a new one and get the job done right (lesson learned)


So, it only makes sense that I forgot to take before pictures of these chairs. Let me tell you, they were bad. My roommate and I got them from beside a dumpster when we were in grad school six years ago. They sat on my patio for three years after I got a real dining room set. The wood was so weather worn there was no stain left. The fabric was a yellow/green vinyl that had tears and paint all over it because I used them when working on a painting project.

I think they presented an extra challenge from other refurbishers' jobs because they they have curved backs, and those curved backs are exposed on the back so there is no hiding and extra bunched up fabric.

I wanted to use some bright, cheerful, funky fabric because these are going in the bedroom, so why not do something crazy, right? Well, as you see I ended up with the plain old neutrals that plague the rest of my house. I still love LOVE the way they turned out