Truly Trash to Treasure

Okay...it happened.  It was bound to happen.  I mean, you can't be a blogger and read all about everyone else finding treasures and not find yourself looking.  What am I talking about, you ask?  Well yesterday, while driving my kids to school, I saw a potential treasure in someone's trash.  Yes, that's right, the trash.  Someone was throwing out outdoor furniture.   I wanted to stop right there and then and pick it up, but my kids were beyond mortified and begged me to just keep driving.  However, after I dropped my kids off, I just had to go back and luckily, the chairs were still there...so I jumped out and threw them into the back of my vehicle.

I have to tell you that before blogging, I would have never even noticed these on the side of the road, much less stopped and taken them.  Now, not only did they catch my eye, but I knew for sure that I could breathe new life into them.  Once home I unloaded them to assess their quality.  In my haste of retrieving them from the garbage (trust me...I was in and out of there in seconds), I didn't even realize there were also four seat cushions as well.

Upon closer inspection, the only thing really wrong with these chairs was a little paint peeling on the arms.  The rest of the chair was in perfect condition and a very decent quality.

I started my makeover by scraping the chairs down with a wire brush.  They cleaned up pretty easily.

Once I got the majority of the peeling paint off, I used 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the arms of the chairs.

I had left over spray paint from my chiminea project.   I sprayed both chairs...just like new.

Like I said, there were also four cushions with the chairs.  All of them were in very good shape...just a little drab looking.  I popped over to JoAnn's and bought a yard of outdoor fabric which was 40% off.   Since there were only two chairs, I only needed two of the cushions.  I will save the others in our shed for a future use.

I folded a piece of fabric around the cushion.  I then sewed the two sides.

This formed a large pocket for me to slip the pillow cushion into.

For the ties, I covered them in a strip of the new fabric and attached it with fabric glue.

I opened a small section of the seam on the pillow cushion to slip the newly covered ties through.

Then I folded and glued the end of the new fabric cover.

I love how it adds a pop of color to the chair and picks up the color in the planter behind it.

I love the new sitting area.  I just love that I saved these from being thrown into a garbage truck.

By the way, when my kids got home I showed them what I had done and they were super impressed.  However, they did make a point of saying that they were so happy they weren't in the car when "I went to the dark side".

Have a great weekend!!

-Judy