Before's and After's

Matt and I have been working to update some of our furniture around the house. Our hope is to slowly get rid of all the furniture that Matt found "on the side of the road" in college. I don't feel the need to get everything in one whole swoop, that is not a budget friendly plan. Instead we are basically just doing one thing at a time when we feel like it.

Recently I found a dining room chair that I liked at Bed, Bath and Beyond so we decided to replace our existing "side of the road" chairs. I was really happy with the price of the new chairs, especially after using all the 20% off coupons that I got from Matt's mom (thanks Susanne!).

Also. Once we got the chairs we realized that we were going to have to add some height to the table, so Matt got some "feet" from the hardware store and stained them to match the table. I think they turned out great! You can hardly tell they were added!

Here is the before and after of the dining room...

Before

After

The other project that was done is I re-upholstered the pillows on our couch. We decided that we didn't want to buy a whole new set of furniture for our family room. It would be hard to let go of our couch, it is super comfortable and really still in pretty good shape, amazing since I got the couch for free from a family in Germany who had owned it for about 12 years before it came my way (in 2003). Anyways, all it really needed was a good cleaning, restuffing of pillows, and a change in the color scheme. I thought it turned out pretty good!

Before

(taken in 2005, I forgot to get a before shot when I started on the pillows)

After

a close up of the pillows, I forgot to rotate the picture...

If you know me, you probably know that the pillow project was a HUGE undertaking for me and WAY OUT of my comfort zone. I am really not at all comfortable doing craft type projects, I have zero confidence in myself as far as that area is concerned. Basically though, I knew it had to be done, so I walked into the fabric store, told them I'd never sewn anything before, showed them the pillows I wanted to cover, and they basically took it from there. They showed me all the stuff I would need to buy, including a sewing machine. The lady helping me pretty much decided on the color scheme (remember, zero confidence...). I made all my purchases and left the store.

Next, I needed to learn to use the new sewing machine I'd just purchased...thanks to help from some of the ladies at school, I figured out the basics. I am proud to say that I did every pillow, by myself, from start to finish, and did not have to make any do overs! Yay!