A few weeks ago I was spending a quiet weekend by myself at our “Up North” Michigan cottage.  It is so peaceful there and we are fortunate to live on a small inland lake.  I went into town for a few things and had to stop at the little local Goodwill store, you never know what bargains you will find.  I discovered a glass bread dish (perfect for some banana bread) and 3 well used folding chairs.  I looked at those chairs for a bit, I did need some extra seating in the cottage and they really had good bones.  The price sold me and I hauled my treasures out to my car.  I stopped at the local hardware store and picked up two cans of discontinued spray paint in a lovely stone grey for $3. Here is my adventure with those chairs.

My official before picture of one of the folding chairs.  Each chair had a cushioned back and a padded seat, a bonus.

A price of only $5.99 each didn’t hurt either.

When I got it home, I removed the back and cushion.  You can see it was definitely worn and rusted a bit.

I took a 150 grit sandpaper and sanded down the whole chair.  I wanted the spray paint to really stick well.

Then I wiped it down with a damp cloth to remove all of the loose debris.

Next I began to spray paint the whole chair with my bargain spray paint.  I made sure to just shake it up extra good and I did not have any problems.  I painted in short light strokes so the paint would not drip.  I have decided spray paint is amazing.  After it dried, I flipped it over and painted any spots I missed.  It really dried pretty fast.  You can easily do this in a few hours.

While my chairs dried, I started to make my quilty coverings.  I really liked the idea of a sail boat motif for the cottage, so that is what I started with.  I used my stash of low volume grey prints as a neutral palette around the boat.  These are all one inch finished squares.

I used some batting and a backing of muslin and I quilted the design.  Then I covered the back cushion with it and screwed it back onto the chair.  The greys blended perfectly with the stone color spray paint.

For the seat, I took all of my teal and dark blue scraps and cut out 1 1/2 inch squares and randomly sewed them together.  Now, this part did take quite a while.  I liked the look of the small blocks, but you could use larger squares and it would go a lot faster.   If you look closely, you will see another little sailboat motif echoed on the seat.  I quilted this seat cover with batting and a backing of muslin too.  I just used straight line quilting with a walking foot, nothing fancy.   I chose a darker set of colors for the seat since it would get a lot of use.

For the seat, I had to staple it onto the seat with very short staples.  I pulled it as evenly as I could and worked carefully around the seat.

The corners were a little tricky, I just tried to position staples where I only had to go through one layer of fabric.

Here is my finished upcycled chair, it turned out so cute.  I plan on spraying it with ScotchGuard to make it easy to clean.  These chairs look brand new!