Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Do your (grand)mama proud

Grandma Mary was all sassafras

The chairs before being reupholstered

threadbare arms

The chairs came back from the upholsterer (last weekend, sue me). They are PERFECT! My grandmother, who was a working class fashion maven, would have been dismayed to see how run down I had let them get. But I was attached to that old fabric because it was hers. I had so many memories of her and my grandfather sitting in them. But my grandmother never would have had something so shabby in her living room, and I learned from my parents that the old fabric was actually something that grandma had them recovered in, sometime in the mid-70s. SO it wasn't the original fabric anyhow. So nice to have something that my grandmother picked for it's good bones. Maybe my grandchildren will be recovering them 50 years from now.
Amy Butler Coreopsis in green

Amy Butler Coreopsis in aqua

Grandpa and Grandma's chairs after being reupholstered

I had a hard time choosing the fabric. It was between three different fabrics from Amy Butler's August Fields collection. The Coreopsis fabric seemed to be a modern version of the fabric that was on the chairs. After draping them in the one yard samples I ordered, I finally decided to do them in two different colors of the same pattern. The set is actually two different chairs (I call the short one grandma's chair, and the tall grandpa's). It looked very anthropologie-ey to me, and tied together all the colors in the pillows and the jadite, franciscan, and murano glass dishes in the fireplace cabinets. Yahooee!


Now about that rug... Sadie and I both bought this stupid rug before we had kids. Before we had people who would lose cheerios, mac and peas, and boogers deep down inside it's wooly pile. I had it cleaned in December, but it's already disgusting. It really needs to be in a bedroom, where it's softness can be appreciated. SO, here are some options I've looked at. They're both from Anthropologie (quelle suprise). I want something colorful, and HUGE to go under the entire area. 

8 comments:

  1. Chairs are cute. Go with the darker rug. Of course my favorite color is orange-but actually I don't know who can live with light rugs in well used areas-nuns, monks, single folks with no kids no pets? Grandma would be tickled that you have the chairs and picked some tourqoise in them(at least it looks like tht from the pictures. Tourquise was her favorite color.

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  2. OMG. I can't even believe how amazing the chairs look!!!!!
    -Swing

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  3. those chairs are STUNNING!! love love love love love them. your upholstery dude definitely has hands of gold. and i think your two different fabrics idea is gonna take over the design world.

    rug...definitely the first one. it will happily mask the peas, cheerios, and mud pies. the second one is snazzy fun time, but it kind of seems more like a bedspread design.

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  4. That is amazing transformation and I love the fabric choices!

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  5. LOVE the chairs, the fabric looks like a newer version of the old fabric, well done! I vote for the orange rug too!

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  6. Awesome. I think originally I liked the Aqua but now I definitely love the green! Grandma would be proud.

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  7. i like the last run with flowers. but i don't have kids so you should probably choose the opposite.

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  8. I like the second rug, but I have dogs so I would actually go with the first. The chairs look AMAZING! Good choice. Who the hell is your upholstery guy?

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