Me and R were going for our evening walk and I saw these wooden beauties standing outside as trash to be picked up the following day. The way I looked at these beauties lovingly with gleaming eyes! and R said no, they are not coming home. He knows my love for up-cycling and recycling things. And he knew my mind was working overtime. I told him look at these cute legs of the chairs. They are the similar kind of legs what you find in the chairs at the Government Emporims of Gurjari and Rajasthali and back in the day we did have two lower chairs from Rajasthali which I lugged from Jaipur all the way to Bangalore.
He did agree that if and when we were coming back home from the same way and they were there then I was allowed to take home one. I have convinced him how I am going to give them a birth from Swiss to Indian chairs. And I said, then I am going to take them home and he was like no..no....no! and then he said I don't know you and am going home. I lugged two of the chairs home alone and was super excited for my brand new project.
The next afternoon I cleaned and dusted the chairs, they were quite old chairs probably from the 70`s made with good with and look at those little metal things used as an anti scratch for the floors. I even loved the cover but of course it needed a change. I brainstormed and decided that my inspiration will be the low style of Indian chairs.
So here are the steps I took:
1. So I measured 8 inches, marked it with a knife and started chopping the legs with my hand saw. I must have needed a couple of hours to do that. But immediately it started shaping the shape. As the legs of the chair came off that 8 inches made it into an Indian chair from a Swiss one. I like the look a lot.
2. The second step was to take out the nails which held the whole fabric together. That was an insane amount of staples they had used and that was a bit challenging for me to do, but anyhow that was done too.
3. Now I dusted the cushion which looked pretty decent to me and I got a sandpaper and warnish to give it a fresh coat. That was fun to do and it looked fresh.
4. Now I hunted in my fabric cupboard and found a couple of things for the new cover and i asked for my family's vote which all went to this lovely white embroidered fabric which I had for years.
5. Now I realised I also didn't have any furniture stapler machine so I got the cheeped for 9.90 Chf and that did the job well. Along the way I learned so many little tips and tricks with trail and error, was fun and refreshing and very satisfying.
6. Now what I did was, put the old cover on my new fabric cut it up for the top and used a normal beige cotton to put under the chair for neatness. I cut it a little too short so that was a bit of a challenge. So if you are going to make one, do cut it oround 3 inches longer. They I sewed the corners and started fixing it on the chair. Most of my staples were done well but some started falling out too. So to be on the safer side I hand sewed most of my botton lining cover and that looked pretty neat.
7. Now my chair is pretty stable but to make it a bit more sturdy I have bought the little L shape metal supports, which i still have to put up on the sides on the legs.. that will give it a more solid feel and durability too.
I hope you enjoyed my little project, I absolutely had a blast doing this and now it sits proudly in my little office and I also made one for R which sits in his office. Now-a-days its all about home office so its nice to have some colour in our offices.
PS: I have folded the trimming later under the chair and homed it with needle and thread. And since the legs were chopped it didn't feel very strong so R helped me put four metal corners for some extra support.