A DIY For Him AND Her...

Yes, this is something that both Brandon AND I really enjoyed doing.  Let's face it... if you put a staple gun in a man's hand, he can have fun for hours!  I have to first start with the story of our little table:

Our little precious table was found at a garage sale of some friends of YWAM here in California.  They were downsizing after all their children had moved out of the house, and were getting rid of TONS of furniture.  Brandon and I were just weeks away from getting married, and well, we had a bed... but that was about it.  So we visited their garage sale.  They had a really cute old square table (with 2 extending leaves) and 4 chairs.  It was love at first sight.  But they were asking $30 for it, and we only came with maybe $15.  We had to say no, and walk away.  As we were leaving, they called us back over and told us that the table was hand crafted in Scotland in the 1800's, and it was their first piece of furniture as a married couple.... then they explained that since we were about to be married, they wanted us to have it... for FREE!   YAY!

So, thats the story of our little table... but those seat cushions always bothered me.  Maybe you like the picnic table checkered look, but I don't loathe it.  So, after all those days, staring at them, I decided, enough is enough!

This is an easy (I promise, EASY) project... we had a ton of fun, and it was very inexpensive.

All you need is fabric (I measured the approximate size of mine so that I would buy more than enough), batting (we found ours at Walmart), foam (optional), scissors, an iron, and a staple gun.

You can see the original blue and white checkered fabric that had covered the seats, yes, I loathed that fabric.  Then we discovered the original leather that had been covering those old seats... I'm sure they dazzled in their day, but alas their time had come.  Under the leather, we found the seats had some kind of padding... like what you find under your carpeting.  We actually thought we would save it and still use it to add a little extra cushion.

We traced each seat on the foam pads, angling the marker so that the foam extended about 1/4 inch around the seat.  Then, we simply cut the foam with scissors.  I'd imagine that if you found really high quality foam, you might need a electric knife, but our simple scissors did the job just fine.

Oh, and make sure you take a coffee break!  It took us a while to rip all the old fabric and leather off the seats, so we paused to enjoy some good brew.

Remember that old cushiony layer we discovered.  Well, we took that and placed it back onto the seats.  Then we took (well, actually it was more like "Brandon took") the staple gun, and while folding the upper edge of the foam down, rolling it under itself, stapled the foam as close to the edge of the seat as possible.  Since we don't really care or scrutinize over being perfect, it didn't matter to us if the foam puffed up in between the staples... we figured it wouldn't be that noticeable when finished.

 Next, we took the batting, and cut out 4 pieces... allotting enough extra inches to wrap it over the sides of the seat and staple it underneath.  Then we stretched the batting over the seat, and again, Brandon executed the stapling like a pro.

While he was busy doing this... I cut our fabric pieces and ironed them.  Oh, I forgot to mention about the fabrics... we (well, I) wanted to have a different fabric for each chair.  I absolutely LOVE Amy Butler, but the darn craft stores in our area hardly carry her.  So while we were up in Bend, Oregon, I found a really nice quilting store, and they had a whole display of her fabrics.  We chose 2 that we loved, and then found 2 others that complimented her colors and patterns.  

The final step was just covering each seat with the fabric.  We made sure to check that the prints were straight, or how we liked them.  You'll want to have 2 sets of hands while doing this part.  The hardest part was just making sure the fabric was stretched evenly with no 'bubbles' or 'wrinkles'.  

And VOILA!  4 beautiful seat cushions!  The foam turned the originally hard seats to extremely billowy seats.

And now our beautiful old Scottish table is cheery and better fits our personalities.  I still LOVE it, and it to this day is still my favorite piece of furniture.

***If you're wondering what happened to the 4th chair, well, we store it in our garage.  One day when we don't live in a shoe, we'll have room for a real table with chairs that go all around the sides.  But until, then, our little family of 3, only needs 3 chairs.