Chairs

Monday, as I was taking off my seat covers in the kitchen to wash~again....the thought hit me. Why don't I just recover the seats in something that can be wiped off? My current method of washing my seat covers almost daily and using my little green machine to clean the chairs on a regular basis was exhausting. So...thinking that I am a GENIUS I load the Dudes up and we go to the fabric store. I was tempted by all the fun patterns and colors, but opted for a dark "coffee" color in a faux leather. I bring the fabric home and it sits on my counter for 2 days. Why? Because, I have no earthly idea how to recover a chair. None. Nada. Zilch. So, me recovering all 6 of my kitchen chairs is a GENIUS idea. Right? This morning was another rainy, cold, miserable day. The Dudes were playing and happy this morning so I thought it was as good a time as any to recover some chairs. I consult the all knowing and wise Google on what I should do. Luckily you type in "How to recover a chair" and you are bombarded with a million sites telling you what to do. Whew! Thank you Google! So, I gather my supplies. Mr. Mayer's drill, his staple gun, some screw drivers and my scissors. I start with the first chair. There are 7 screws on each chair that I have to unscrew to get the seat off. They are at a weird angle and there are wood bars in between each leg complicating matters. My drill doesn't exactly fit easily into the spaces. Grrr....it takes me 30 minutes to unscrew the first chair. This is going to take all day. I cut my fabric and freak out. Should I take the existing cushions off? Cover over them? Oh no!! What do I do?! I call Betsy. She's good at this stuff. She doesn't answer. Ugh. I text her and tell her that I really need her to answer her phone because I was elbow deep in a project. She doesn't respond. She's probably working or something lame. I decide to just cover over the existing cushions. Then the corners! Oh no! What do I do about corners?!?! I find some websites with some suggestions. All of them say that pleats are normal. If you don't have pleats you aren't doing it right. Then Betsy calls me. Figures. I told her I had carried on without her. She reassures me that it's easy and I can do it. I.  Hope. So. Oh, she also says corners are hard. Great. I'm figuring this out. It takes me an hour and two things of staples to get the first seat covered. I start on the second seat. These screws are even harder to get unscrewed. Somehow...not real sure how, but I break the drill bit. Yup. Broke it clean off. Doh!!! Mr. Mayer is going to kill me! How on earth do you break a drill bit?! How is that possible?!

My initial reaction it so text Mr. Mayer and say whoopsie. But, I don't. Instead I load the Dudes up and we race down to the hardware store. I drag the Dudes down the aisles until I find what I am looking for. I find the appropriate drill bits and buy 2. You know, just in case. Hahahaha....Mr. Mayer doesn't know this. Let's see if he reads my blog! We come home and I resume my project. By the 3rd chair I am getting my rhythm down. Corners are still a little tricky, but improving. However~the screws are still a B*t%c#. Ugh....Unscrewing and screwing back in are troublesome. By the 3rd seat I have a breakthrough. Duh! Just use some longer screws. Hello! GENIUS! Now....this is the point I learn something about Mr. Mayer. My husband is a screw hoarder. Insert dirty jokes here. I have a million going through my mind right now. I went to the garage in search of longer screws and found an entire drawer of screws. I bet he had 50+ boxes of screws in various sizes. Including the size I needed for my chairs! That's a good thing. I really didn't want to drag the Dudes back to the hardware store. Great. Now I have longer screws. Chairs 4&5 went much quicker. I was still having a heck of a time getting the screws out. Grrr...I was starting to get really frustrated. It was on the 6th chair that I had another epiphany. Duh, get a shorter drill bit. There was one on the little replacement kit I bought this morning. I go back out to the garage and get the shorter bit. Hallelujah!!! The shorter bit works. The screws come out in no time!! Whoo!!! My 6th chair takes a fraction of the time the first 5 have taken. Not only can I get my drill in and unscrew the screws in no time, but I have a handle on the corners. Sheesh...if only I had that clarity on the first chair. Needless to say, it took me 7 hours to recover 6 kitchen chairs. But, I did it. I feel accomplished. And, I think they look pretty good. Best part about the kitchen chairs though, they can be wiped off. I mean seriously. I have 3 kids. My chairs get gross. Being able to wipe them off is going to be worth all the calamity I went through today. Now that I know how to do it Mr. Mayer better watch out. I may get a wild hair to start recovering a lot more in the house! My dining room chairs look a little drab :)