Recovering

I should say upholstering and recovering. I was busy with several upholstering projects but then I had a little accident and not able to do much.

Last week as I was reaching deep into the recycling bin, I reached down too far and put too much weight on my rib against the bin. I felt and heard my rib pop. So, it is either cracked or extremely bruised. I have not been to a doctor because I know there is nothing they can do. I have had a cracked rib before.

Upholstering.....I started on the kitchen chairs awhile ago and this proved to be one of the more challenging upholstering projects I have done.  You would think by looking at the chair, it would be easy but it involves drilling holes in plastic and hammering nails where the heads want to come through the fabric.  Binx tried to help.

These are the chairs that my sister Sherry and I picked up at the dump years ago. I am happy she doesn't want them anymore, even though they are a challenge. I have two more to go. Luckily, I have two of Grandma's chairs to add to the table for now.

I have decided I am getting too much gray and blue in the kitchen and dining areas and since there is that little hint of yellow in the fabric (and I also have banana's out on the counter), I have decided to add yellow here and there. The knobs on the built in hutch are now yellow.

Hey....what is that picture on the wall? It's us girls several years ago.  It is a mystery as to why Jo was allowed to have swoop bangs.

Mike and I tried to clean the barrel chairs we bought from the thrift store. They were a lot dirtier than we thought. We had two different upholstery cleaning machines but we couldn't get either one of them to work. We then tried cleaning without the machines by just using foam cleaner and a brush. That didn't work either. I called a company and it would cost more to clean one chair than the price we paid for it. Mike and I discussed this issue and decided that we really liked the chairs, they are comfortable. I called and made an appointment for the professional cleaner to come.

After they dried a few days, the cleaning guy didn't seem too happy that I called to tell him  they were still dirty.  There were a few streaks and it looked like they missed one very large black area on the arm of the chair. I figured if I paid a professional to clean them, they should look clean. So they came back and cleaned them again. Hopefully this time, it worked. I will have to wait a couple of days to make sure. Those were dirty chairs from the thrift store!

While they were here the first time, we also had drain cleaning professionals here, snaking our kitchen pipes.  On move in day back in March, the kitchen drains backed up and we had two sinks full of black water. It smelled like dirt or soil from the yard. I remember Mom used to set her plants in the sink and water them. She also threw food down the disposal quite often. I poured a whole bottle of drain cleaner down the sink. The next day we tore the kitchen out and when I had a kitchen again months later, I had totally forgotten about the backed up sinks. It drained pretty well until last week when I noticed it was slowing down and I could smell drain cleaner.  The drain technician said it was starting to clog again, under our basement cement floor.

This is all new to me. We had a septic tank in Georgia so I wan't  sure how this city sewer thing worked. My neighbor Gary, gave me a little insight and then the drain guy did too. This is a weird picture because my feet are not really where you see them. 

Back to upholstering.

My neighbor, who moved into that beautiful apartment, gave me a chair that was in her garage. I didn't take a before picture but I found this one. As you can see, the cats love it. What you can't see is the huge hole in the cane, right above Pete's head. I had considered cross stitching the back to hide the hole but ended up not doing that.

More yellow. In fact it is the same spray paint as the hutch handles.

My next project are two chairs (besides the kitchen chairs). We bought these at the thrift store and tried to clean them as well. We decided I need to re-upholster them because there isn't enough foam padding in the arms. Much to my surprise, these chairs come apart! I hope they are easy to put back together and easy to recover.

One last thing. Mike is happy that I am making progress in my unpacking.  

The above picture is everything that needed to come upstairs (which makes me laugh every time I see this picture) and the below picture is a pile I have started for another garage sale. 

Mike can't believe I am planning another sale, for next spring! I hope to be totally unpacked by then.