new (old) chairs… and some news

Yesterday was my first unscheduled Sunday in a while. Dave and I woke up with a plan to have no plan – just enjoy the day, relax and be lazy. That lasted all of about an hour, when I noticed a couple of beat-up old chairs at the used furniture store down the street – and fell in love. They were filthy and moldy, but they had nice lines and would go perfectly with some 1940’s library chairs that I refinished a few years ago. Plus, they were 5 bucks each. So before we knew it we were picking up sandpaper and paint at the hardware store and lugging the chairs home. We spent all of our Sunday afternoon under the shady tree next to our apartment, sanding and pulling out upholstery staples. Our neighbors thought we were crazy, but it was pretty fun. Today I have sore shoulders and tender hands, but I’m really excited about the chairs! Here’s what we’ve done so far:

The sanding went pretty quickly, but the upholstery part was a nightmare! I was cursing the former owner for using about a zillion upholstery staples… only to find that there were four layers of heavily-stapled upholstery to undo. That took some time…

I think the wood is a little too far gone to leave them natural, but they’ll look nice with a coat of white paint, and I sent a print off to Spoonflower last night, so soon they’ll be upholstered with some new Monaluna fabric.

And that brings me to my news. I’ve been thinking about this for a few months now, and I finally decided to take the plunge and manufacture my own line of organic cotton fabric. The line is still in the very early stages, but if all goes according to plan (always an “if”), the fabrics will be available on my (new) website in early spring 2010. Look for more updates soon!