Sunday, May 9, 2010

How an Uncrafty Person Recovers Patio Furniture

I'm bringing you a crafty version of Not Me, Monday (Not Me! Monday is a blog carnival created by MckMama; you can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have NOT been doing - but really have!)!

**Hint: If you get confused, just remove the words in my post that are in all caps and you'll know the truth!**

I did NOT jump all over the suggestion of exactly one person who commented on my blog post from Friday who said they'd like to see pictures of the cushions I recovered for my outdoor patio furniture!

I am NOT posting a crafty tutorial as if I am an expert!

** Disclaimer I had no idea what I was doing. I just made up a process as I went along. I am happy with the outcome but have no guarantee it will hold up to the test of time! **

So here you go.

How I, an uncrafty person, recovered my patio furniture cushions:

Before my cushions (2 chair cushions and 1 bench cushion) were terribly stained. Too many times hosting kid birthday parties, too many nights of our neighbor's cats sleeping on them, too many coatings with yellow pollen that blows through the air freely for a couple months every spring all contributed to the ugliness.


I went to the fabric store and because I am cheap I limited my choices to the discount fabric. I found some great fabric for around $2.00 per yard. The material is not technically outdoor fabric, but the furniture is under a roof and the material is rough textured and stiff so it seems like moisture would not absorb too easily and some debris would brush off.

I am uncrafty so I didn't really closely measure and pretty much just guessed and got 5 yards (I ended up with a bunch extra but I'm glad to have spare in case a cushion needs to be recovered in the future.)

I cut the fabric to wrap around each cushion and then pretended like I was wrapping a present.
Only instead of using tape, I hand stitched the fabric to the cushion in a few different spots using heavy-duty thread. The heavy-duty thread I had on hand was a beige type color and it would have been much better to use a color that exactly blended with my fabric, but I was worried that adding another trip to the store for this project just may have been enough to put it over the edge into the land-of-projects-I-plan-but-never-accomplish, so I foraged ahead with the mismatched thread, knowing the goal was not perfection!

I folded over the edges that would end up showing on the outside before I stitched them to the cushion to get a clean edge without hemming.




And the finished product:

And here's what they look like on the furniture:

I did the bench cushion first. I wanted to tackled the hardest part first because I thought once I got it over with then I'd surely be motivated to finish the other cushions because I'd just have the easy chair ones left. But, in hindsight, I wish I'd done the bench last because I learned so much during the process and got better with each cushion. For the bench I actually used a combination of stapling the fabric and sewing it, but I realized the staples didn't work very well and hated the areas where I could see staples showing. I ended up adding a ribbon trim to 2 ends to cover staples, but that step would have been unnecessary if I'd just stitched it all to begin with!

I really love the way it turned out. I hope it holds up over time. But if not, I'm only out about $10 and a few hours of my time (the bench took me a couple hours and the chairs about 45 min. each) and for now it looks so much better than the stained fabric!!

If I can do it, you can too! From a girl who actually managed to poke herself in the lip with a needle during this process, trust me on that one, and also trust me that you should not attempt to hold the needle with your mouth while you position fabric!

19 comments:

  1. Those are really cute!! Good for you. I need to recover a chaise lounge cushion.

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  2. That's beautiful! My husband came home last night with a yard swing from his parents and I need to recover the cushions. You did a great job! (I'm visiting from Homemaker Mondays :)

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  3. I am impressed! They look REALLY good. Nice job! I've done dining room chairs once and went with the stapples. It worked well but then I had the actual seat to stapple into, haha...

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  4. You did a lovely job of those - the fabric is gorgeous!

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  5. Congrats on a successful diy job. There are times when "conventional" sewing is over-rated (as a sewer, I should know).

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  6. Great job and I LOVE the material you picked!

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  7. Love that set, remember where you got it? I'm looking for something for the lake.

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  8. Very impressive! You did a great job.

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  9. I love that fabric! Now I want to recover my cushions!

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  10. I have been looking for a way to recover my outside bench. Thank you for the tutorial! It looks like it would be on my scale of crafty.

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  11. The fabrics are great. I have seen more fantastic fabrics in our local market. cheap garden furniture

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  12. Hello! I'm a new follower of your sweet blog via Met Monday (catching up from last week!). I love your new seat cushions! The fabric you chose is just fabulous. And I like the way you covered them - my kind of girl!

    I'd love for you to come by for a visit - having a giveaway!
    http://emmacallsmemama.com/2010/05/bff-giveaway/

    Blessings,
    Marie

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  13. Hello! I'm a new follower of your sweet blog via Met Monday (catching up from last week!). I love your new seat cushions! The fabric you chose is just fabulous. And I like the way you covered them - my kind of girl!

    I'd love for you to come by for a visit - having a giveaway!
    http://emmacallsmemama.com/2010/05/bff-giveaway/

    Blessings,
    Suzanne

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  14. This tutorial serves as a source of inspiration for those who are still starting to refinish their own domestic furniture by themselves. Keep those great posts coming!

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  15. Furniture cushion are called to be the dirt magnets, as we see they are always the first thing in the patio which are always dirty which is the reason why I keep them indoors when they are not in use, sometimes bleaching them so often is not a good idea, because some how it speeds up the way how cushion loose it's colors, which is why changing their fabric is the best way at all,

    Denver Patios

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  16. Thank you for this article! I think its so important that everyone knows the future of home outdoor space, I really enjoyed reading this article thank you. The chairs are very lovely with their new cushions! I think it is so great if we can re purpose and reuse, it saves money and keeps things from the landfill.
    Outdoor Chair Cushions

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I'd love to hear what you think!