Chaising the Blues Away

No, I did not forget how to spell. The title references our newest piece of furniture. Yes, we have a new chaise lounge, and it is making me very happy. You did not think that we needed one? Well, neither did Douglas, and I tried really hard to avoid obtaining it. Obviously, I lost the battle. I left the chaise at the garage sale where I found it and went about my day, but in the end I did not have the heart to abandon it. I went back and brought it home with me. I am blaming my mother for being a bad influence. It was her idea to go to the garage sale in the first place, and she kept encouraging me to buy it. How many chaises do you think I can fit in our small home?

I know that she does not look like much now, but she is going to be beautiful. Hopefully, you can tell that she has good bones. Douglas is not as convinced, but my mom and I both saw the potential right from the start.

I also do not think that she is going to be hard to refinish. The metal base should clean up easily. My only debate is whether or not to paint it, since some of the brass has worn off. I might leave it with the two tones. Once it is clean, I do not think it will look that bad.

I could not wait to find out exactly what we were dealing with. I flipped it over to remove the base, but it has special screws. Luckily, Douglas had a screwdriver that worked.

Once we had the base off, my mom helped me take off the burlap type material that had been badly added. I pried the staples up with a flat-head screwdriver and my mom pulled them out with pliers.

This is what we uncovered. It was a very well-made piece at one time. Let us hope that I can restore it to a fraction of its original glory.

The chaise desperately needed cleaned, so I vacuumed it thoroughly.

Crème thought that it was great fun. She had a blast on her own personal teeter-totter.

I believed from the start that this was going to be an easier job than the other reupholstery projects that I have planned for the first chaise lounge and the circular couch. I decided to take the first step today. Douglas helped me staple on this moving blanket that we had laying around the house. It was difficult to keep the blanket stretched tight since there are so many curves on the chaise. That is why there are no pictures of us working together. Here I am figuring out how I want the corners. They do not have to be perfect here since I will be covering this with the upholstery fabric. This blanket is just to allow that fabric to lay flat.

Here is what the chaise looked like on both sides after that blanket was attached. It already looks much better.

A while ago, I was debating what fabric to buy for the back of the couch. You can view my choices in this post. I ended up buying a couple of yards of the first fabric because I wanted to see what it looked like and planned to make some pillows with it even if I did not end up using it for the back of the couch. It turns out that the piece I bought is just long enough for the chaise. I think that happened for a reason. Unfortunately, the staples we had were not long enough to stick well through the two layers of material. The hardware store was already closed, so that will have to wait for another day.

In the meantime, we reattached the base.

I put some felt on the bottom, so that our beautiful hardwood floors would not get scratched.

Here is what the chaise looks like now, both sans and with cat. It is much better already than it was with the burlap, do you not agree? Crème does!

In case you are wondering what is in the vase behind the chaise, that is rosemary that I trimmed from the bush in the front garden. It has been there for two weeks and still looks great. We also used some in our roast the other night.

Update: The chaise lounge has since been reupholstered!

Happy Homemaking!