Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Trash to Treasure Birthday Chair

I couldn't decide what to get my niece Maisie for her 2nd birthday - but then... THERE IT WAS.

As I was on my way to the post office, a little wooden rocker sat all alone by the curb in front of a neighbor's house.  The next day was trash day.

On my way back from the post office, I hoped the little chair would still be there and lo and behold, it was.

I figured the chair must be broken but it wasn't.  It had some kids' stickers stuck to it and quite a bit of permanent marker drawn on it but otherwise, it was perfect.  Into my trunk it went.  I had plans for this little seat.

The first thing I did was get my husband to remove the stickers and sand it down as much as possible.  Here's how it looked after he gave it a whirl:



Unfortunately, the week leading up to Maisie's birthday was very humid and my house isn't centrally air conditioned.  That was not good for getting the paint to dry.  I decided to use an oil based paint because I had some left from another project and it was just the right color of off-white that still appeared white.  First I gave it a good prime.  When the primer was dry, nicely covering the marker that didn't sand away, I brushed on the first coat.



It took 2 coats of paint and seemed to take forever to dry between coats.  While it was drying I decided to make a little cushion for it.  I pieced together some strips for the top and made the back so it had a slip-in opening.  I attached some rick rack to tie the cushion to the spindles.  I filled the cushion with some really cheap batting that a friend had used to wrap and send a gift to us.

Here's how it looked when it was done:


I wished I had made the cover a LITTLE bigger.  I custom made the pattern by drawing it on some newspaper and I should have been a little more careful with my sizing. 




However, Maisie's bottom fit on it just fine.  Though the cute little chair is totally cuter when filled with my adorable little red-headed niece complete with little pony tails!


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