Friday, May 29, 2009

What I Accomplished This Week

Subtitled: Too Much Of a Good Thing

First, the good news.

I have been needing to make new seat covers for oh, I hate to admit it... about a year now. We have a cheap little kitchen table set with some pretty sad chairs to go around it. I mean, it's fine for what it is, but it's looking pretty worn.

Seven kids can do that to a kitchen set fairly quickly.

This is what my kitchen table looks like now (I had to spruce it up a couple of years ago after a primer mishap), and just so you get an idea of what the rest of the room looks like, here it is.

All of that is so you don't cringe in horror when I tell you that I made new seatcovers that are pink.

Bright pink.

You've seen the pictures, so hopefully you understand that in my kitchen it just... works. (or maybe it's just my imagination, but humor me!)

It made me happy. It made me smile. Look at Grace here... she's a happy kid sitting on the new seat covers!





But I couldn't leave well enough alone. I stood back, loving every second of my seat covers, and then the thought came to me...

"Maybe you should paint the chairs as well. After all, look how much fun you had painting the table!"

That did it.

I HAD to paint the chairs.

The room was just too yellow, and the yellow hue of the wood in the chairs and the counter was just too much. I went to the hardware store, picked up some paint, and had the kids help me take the chairs apart and sand them. They did a GREAT job, and as a reward, they each got to paint a chair (or part of it, at least). I even had some fabric stashed away that would be GREAT for the actual seat itself (you see, the original seat fabric was beyond nasty, and had to be replaced. However, being a mom of many, I knew that the REAL seat would need seat COVERS that could be WASHED. Does this make sense?)

It took two days of work (the original seats were covered in fabric that must have had a hundred staples holding it on! Good grief!), but we finally got it done.

Here's the chair as it really looks in my kitchen...


...and here it is all nice and bright so you can actually see it.


(No, I don't normally let Grace run around like this. She had just spilled her drink on her shirt, and insisted on being in the chair even though I was trying to take a picture! Just keepin' it real, here...)


But alas... the new chair, while looking OK on its own...



...just looks wrong with my hot pink seat covers on it.


The ONLY thing that I was really thrilled about in the first place!

So now I'm kicking myself for painting the chairs. I should have just replaced the nasty fabric on the seats themselves, put my new hot pink covers on, and gone my merry little way.

I'm so sad.


5 comments:

Unknown said...

LOVE the color of the chairs. You had me thinking is was going to be bold lime or something like it, but no. It's a very nice shade of green.

Maybe you could sew some kind of contrasting fabric onto the covers so that you like it a little better. If the pink makes you happy, you have to use it. After all, you spend an inordinate amount of your life in that room; you might as well get visual joy out of it!

If I could employ half of your creative abilities in my home, it would be a different place. But alas-- I just had to have a nice little Martha Stewart for a best friend! (And that was meant in the nicest Martha sense of the word!)

Ouiz said...

Hmmm. I hadn't thought of that. I guess I'll have to look at it over the next week or so and see if any sort of inspiration hits.

I'm still just bummed that all the "fun" has been sucked out of my chairs.

Tragedy? no. Visually less appealing than I would like? Yeah.

And you ARE creative -- your house is beautiful! It's got that tasteful, classic elegance that will never look dated. I've got lime green, bright yellow, and hot pink in MY kitchen. Go figure.

Still, I can't wait to sit at your kitchen and go over fun house decorating magazines!

Erin Manning said...

Stencil a few hot-pink roses with varying shades of green leaves along the uppermost bar of the chair back to tie the seat covers in, et voila!

(My mom would have done that. Me, personally--no. I've never met a craft I couldn't utterly fail at.)

:)

Ouiz said...

See? I'm glad I posted this, 'cause y'all are coming up with some good ideas, which is giving me some hope!

Thank you, Erin!

Hmmm.

I just need to figure out how to carry it off, because the table is stenciled, and the hutch behind it is as well, and if I goof up and overdo the chairs, people will wonder what my obsession is with the ivy motif...*grin*

I promise to keep everyone posted on the status of my chairs... *grin*

Anonymous said...

I like it - although, I am of an 'eclectic'mind-set! The stecil suggestion sounds good, though!

Remember: with every pregnant idea, comes new birth.

This may become an evolution of sorts, that will end up better than when begun!

You should join us over at The MSBBCL Directory!