Same Old Song to The Muse Within (under $11)

I picked up this chair at a thrift shop for $6. The photo below shows the chair as it looked when I purchased it. I liked its curvy lines, and the motif inside the chair back.

It's called a Lyre Back chair, for obvious reasons. The lyre instrument motif has been incorporated into chair backs almost since chairs were invented, apparently. Anyway, it's lovely.

                                                

It was in pretty good shape. The chair seat had been upholstered twice (the bottom one was probably original) and the last re-do had been done with a lot of messy glue of some kind, that had dripped into hardened glue-cicles down the legs. Fortunately, I was able to peel the glue off with the help of a putty knife.

I thought it was a recently made cheap version, until I started taking it apart at home, and found that it was pretty old, judging from the labels I found underneath.



I covered the labels to preserve them, before I painted the chair. There is something charming about old labels (there's a round-headed mascot on the one shown above) and it adds a little bit to the history of the piece.

I removed the chair seat, which had been glued in place by a previous re-upholsterer, and chipped/peeled off any remaining drips of hardened glue.

It got a couple spray coats of Colonial Red Rustoleum paint.

I cut out 3 layers of poly batting for the seat. Yes, I have rolls of poly batting here. Who doesn't?

I used 3 layers of poly batting, 2 layers of mid-weight interlock, and one layer of decorative fabric print I'd picked out specially at the fabric store on Saturday. The red and black feather-y print looks gorgeous with the dark red paint on the chair.

By the way, here's what the back should look like. I like all the raw edges covered as much as possible.

Fold and pull the corners tightly and neatly. They should look something like this:

                                     

Add the seat cushion back on, and secure with wood screws.

I had a little trouble uploading the photo shown above, otherwise I would place it into the correct order - but here are all the layers of batting and fabrics. The red fabric is the interlock, it provides a great taut, soft, smooth finish for the thinner, outer, decorative print.

Yes, I'm happy with it.

Cost:

* Chair: $6 at a thrift shop.

* Paint: less than $2.

* Fabrics: about $3.

** total = less than $11