I had dinner at a friend’s house last weekend. I hadn’t been there since back in the summer, as Emma had been busy re-decorating. I have to say I was really impressed by her efforts to do up her kitchen on a shoestring budget. Instead of buying a whole new kitchen, she’d painted the old doors and put on new handles, and just replaced the countertops with some inexpensive wood-effect laminate. It looks really good and a lot more expensive than it actually was!
But what I thought was really cool, and why I’m writing about it on here, is what Emma had done with her counter stools. She’d re-covered each of the seats is different fabrics so they all looked really unique and fitted in really well with her kitchen’s new image. Apparently she’d found the stools collecting dust in her parents’ garage and loved their retro-style so she’d decided to resurrect them.
They’re the basic kind of backless bar stools with padded seats and a chrome frame. They’d got damp in the garage and gone a bit rusty in places, so Emma spent a weekend removing the rust, sanding them down and refinishing them with chrome spray. Whilst the seats were detached she noticed the upholstery was only held on with staples, so it was easy to remove the moldy and faded old fabric. She got rid of the old cushioning as well, as it had gone flat. She used some polyester padding instead and covered it with pieces of fabric she’d collected from thrift stores, which she simply stapled in place under the seats.
So, if you’re feeling creative and like to be thrifty, hopefully this story will give you some inspiration for giving your own bar stools a makeover.