What's a girl to do when she is budget conscious and wants 2 wingback chairs
to match her love of purple and doesn't want (or can't) spend hundreds of
dollars on one chair?
She scours thrift stores...
It took me quite a while to find two matching chairs, that had such an
incredible price, I literally was waiting 20 minutes outside the store for them
to open up, so no one got these chairs before me!
(One of my favorite stores posts pictures of new stuff on FB; so I saw these
and hauled butt to the store)
Here is one (the other is an exact match)
30 bucks for both, in great condition! They even had arm covers that looked
like a cat got ahold of them but when taken off......perfect arms and the fabric
was pristine!
Even if the dye doesn't work....reupholstering still can be done for the
price!
Now I know you already have an idea of what color I am going to try and dye
these so i won't even try and pretend they're not going purple.
Ok, here is the arm cover being tested.
Yes, I stuck in a old baking sheet so I didn't stain my countertops.
Now, all of these pictures show the chairs not completely dry, and not rinsed
off. I still have to do a cold water rinse to set the dye.
I boiled water in the largest pot I had, turned the water off added one
packet of purple dye and stirred using a wooden spoon. (my spoon is now
purple....little bonus! but I won't be using for food anymore)
I used my garden hose and totally soaked the chair in just plain tap water.
Then using a standard garden pump sprayer (usually used for mixing fertilizer
or pesticides in) I took the nozzle off of the sprayer so the water flowed
freely and pumped up the pressure and sprayed the chair.
Going over and over in one section until the chair was completely covered and
SOAKED.
My pot to boil the water was smaller then the sprayer so I had to boil 6 pots
(5 quarts each) and added dye each time to do one complete coat of every side of
the chair. These pictures are one coat, still wet.
The velvet back takes the dye differently, and it is showing where scratches
are, but for my furniture layout? I might be able to make it work, at this
stage we let the dye drain off into the driveway so the chair was still dripping
wet and after about 10 minutes we moved it into the garage to dry overnight.
The next morning, I wanted to do a second coat of dye, so here it is with a
second coat. Then back into the garage to dry. (it's supposed to rain today and
I want to let the dye sit on it for awhile before rinsing)
Second coat still wet.
A close up of the back, if it dries and it's not too streaky in
color, then I'll hose it down, let it dry and call it done!
Stay tuned to see how it turns out!
Click HERE
if you want to see more pictures of the finished chairs in my living room.
XO,
Christine