Dinette Makeover

Wonder Hubby and I have been stalking a local home decor store for several months.  I know that they thought we were weirdos but we were mulling over purchasing a welsh hutch for displaying our Fiestaware collection.    I initially found fell in love with the piece and sent Wonder Hubby to take a look.  The hutch, beautiful as it was,  was quite a bit more than I wanted to spend for the piece so we kept stopping in to see if it might be marked down.  Nope...not at all.  All the while I was trolling Craigslist daily just in case I found something we liked as well for less, everyday I found nothing. 

 Finally about a month ago Wonder Hubby stopped in and made them an offer (which was way more than I would have given).  Here is where you would expect that we purchased the piece and hauled it home, wrong.  They did not accept our offer.  We came home and pouted and debated buying it at the counteroffer price or purchasing a whole dinette set since we were needing to upgrade our kitchen table anyway. 

I spent some time that night online looking at dinette sets in area furniture stores and actually found a set that we planned to go take a look at the next morning.  The set was black, as was the hutch we had been looking at.  Just before bed I trolled Craigslist again and stumbled on a dinette set very similar to the one at the furniture store except that it was off white.  Here is the best part, the whole set, table and six chairs and a china hutch was less than the aforementioned hutch alone! Hmmmm.....worth checking out.  The ad named the brand and I quickly researched it and realized it currently sells for 3x's the asking price!   I emailed to find out if it was still available and went to bed.

First thing the next morning I got a call saying yes it is available, yes it was X brand and less than 1yr old and yes the price stated was correct.  Wonder Hubby and I nearly ran each other over loading up the 4runner and heading out!

Seeing the set was a little bit of a hassle, the table and chairs were in the owners home, the china hutch in their business location.  Oh, did I mention these folks home was on top of the highest point in the area?  No?   Well it was and we almost needed 4 wheel drive get there.  We knew immediately it was going home with us.  So after renting a Uhaul, making several hairy trips to the house and shop we were headed home.  We decided that between the hassle of looking at the pieces in different locations and the awful seats people had missed a jewel.

Here is a shot of the chairs as they were when we purchased them.  I hope this doesn't hurt your eyes.  Not only was the fabric just horrible, the "recovering" job was pitiful.  The poor lady had just covered the seats, she didn't worry about fit or following the contours of the chairs but she did believe in staples and lots of them.

So after moving out the old stuff (which makes a total mess of your home, I had a china cabinet in my bathroom for a couple of days) we got the new set in and set up. This is a shot that shows (kinda of) the old table and hutch.  I got so excited to get the new stuff in I never took a picture of the whole table/cabinet in the kitchen.

Very traditional golden oak pedestal table and chairs.  With oak floors and cabinets and table and chairs we were drowning in the golden glow.

Here is the new set in place....do you see our big problem?

Yes...there is a big ole chandy hanging right in front of the china cabinet!  And, I do mean right in front....so in front you have to move it to open the center door.  We have used the same round kitchen table since we built and moved here 13 yrs ago and until this much larger table and hutch came in we didn't realize the light fixture was way too close to the wall.  So we will be moving the chandy over and repairing the ceiling in the not too distant future (yeah, don't you love an unexpected project). 

The seat fabric might as well have been neon green because it was so distracting.  Next day Wonder Hubby, Mother and I headed out shopping for a new piece or two of Fiesta for the cabinet and fabric for the chairs.  This is the day I met Consuela, I introduced you here.

I found these fabrics to use on the chairs and some for other projects including new lampshades (yet to be completed) on my pot rack.

I planned to cover the arm chairs in the striped fabric and the balance of the chairs in the coordinating plaid.  So here we go.....first we removed the seats.

Next we spent hours removing the staples.  Strangely when we removed the bad covering job the original seats were in perfect shape, I'm not sure why they were recovered.  Although they were nice they weren't exactly what I wanted.

Finally we were ready to get going.  Lots of measuring (thank goodness for Mom since I am measuring tape challenged).  Now we started the recovering process.  Mother is obsessive about matching the stripes on all the chairs thanks to the years she did this professionally.  I am glad she is because it makes the difference in how professional the job looks (and how long it takes).  In the end it is worth it.  There it is again...Mother knows best.

Here are the finished products.

 

I love the legs.  This picture better shows the lightly distressed finish.  The whole set tends to look white in pictures but it is really a barely off white with distressing.

Please excuse the Christmas tree on the right....it was waiting for repairs before being stored and the old table leaf on the left.

Dressed for everyday.

I love the way my Fiesta collection just pops in the cabinet!

I still have some things to do/change in this area (uggg....getting the chandy moved is first) but I am so happy with the change.  It brightens the whole room and breaks up all the oak glow!  Isn't it amazing when we don't get what we want and end up with something so much better?  Thanks for stopping by.

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