The twice re-do bergere chairs

I must start off with a confession.   I stupidly volunteered to re-upholstered these bergere chairs.   I was naive, to say the least, thinking I could easily re-upholster these type of chairs.  I had no idea what it really entailed.  I can tell you now, it was way beyond my upholstery skills.  But as my sister tells me, I am tenacious and that is what forces me to finish things.  I just want to say, hats off to all of you who can do this effortlessly and even give a tutorial!

I took on this challenge for Priscilla,  someone whom I have known since she was 7.  She is now 33.  She was my shadow for years, helping me with my girls when they were little, dressing them up, playing with them and just being my buddy.  I have watched her grow up and now have two beautiful kids of her own, whom I love dearly,  she is a big part of our family’s life.  I rarely say no when she asks me to help her with a home decorating project.

She originally got the chairs off of Craig’s list and they looked like this

They were in good shape, but she didn’t like the fabric or the finish.  She was in the process of putting her living room together and wanted them to match the club chair she already had for the room {how cute is her dog peeking over the chair?}

Her style is shabby chic.  Once I got them, I just started stripping them down.  Yeah, anyone who has done these chairs knows that there are one heck of a lot of staples to remove!  But I did it. Even re-strapped one of the seats.  {luckily I was taking pictures during the process to email to Priscilla for approval.  Other wise I wouldn’t have proof of my hard work because this was before my blogging days)

Then I mixed my own paint color to match the club chair, white washed the finish, and then sanded them back for the shabby look

I choose a stripped fabric from my first re-upholstery job.  BIG MISTAKE.  Do you know how hard it is to pull a stripe straight when you are stapling?  It is hard.  I can not tell you how many times I stapled and then had to take them out because the stripes were crooked.

Hours, upon hours I spent on these chairs.  Cursing and sweating for days on end.  Doing the backside was really, really hard.  But I wasn’t going to give up.  I got both of them done, and it was a proud moment for me.

{shoot, this picture doesn’t show the second one being done or the welting on the top portion of the back,  but believe me, I finished them}

So off to Priscilla they went.  Done, done done.  Never ever again I said to myself.  She can pay someone next time, it wasn’t a project I ever wanted to do again.

A couple of months later after Priscilla had them in her living room,  she decided she really needed a playroom, and the living room was the perfect space…which meant the chairs were no longer needed.  Are you kidding me? My heart sank when she told me her new plan.  It made sense, but still!  I expected her to keep these chairs for life and pass them on to her kids.  I don’t think Priscilla was expecting my not so nice reply when she told me her new plan….let’s just say she felt pretty darn bad.  So she stored them, knowing she could never, ever,  get rid of them after that conversation.

Fast forward 2 years later.  The playroom transformation is totally cute and finished. {wish I had some pictures to show you} But Priscilla still had the chairs stored in her garage.  Recently, she decided she wanted to use the chairs again, but this time in her family room.  The problem is, the fabric and finish doesn’t go with her decor in her family room.  She emailed me one day, and said she was in love with the way Miss Mustard Seed slip covered her settee

Well, we all know that Marian is the queen of slip covering and upholstering, amongst a thousand other talents.  I wasn’t up to the challenge, thank you very much.  But  I knew someone locally who could do the chairs like how Priscilla wanted, so off they went to get ANOTHER makeover.  She did an awesome job, and was pretty reasonable in her price {although Priscilla is used to my labor price…FREE! lol }

Pretty darn cute huh?  {these pictures are not of the chairs in Priscilla’s living room.   One of them still resides at my house until she comes down to get it, I took the pictures in my office}

To save money, we just had her slip cover over the existing fabric I had originally put on the arms and seat and then she re-upholstered the back {better her than me is all I can say!}

We used a brushed white twill fabric.  It was from a king duvet I had that I wasn’t using.  It worked perfectly.  She also re-painted  the finish to go with Priscilla’s family room colors.

Aren’t the ruffles cute?

I actually love the new look.  Yeah, I probably could of done this for her, but once was enough for me!  Priscilla loves them, she can throw the slipcover in the wash and still have a nice fabric underneath while she washes them.  So technically, kind of sorta, she is still using my original chairs.