I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty...

A few weeks ago I finally got the last few boxes in our house unpacked. At last I could get down to the business of making our house pretty. You know, hanging stuff on the walls and making crafty decorations.

It has been satisfying.

Here is the story of my favorite project: new dining room chairs.

I picked these ugly duckings up for free via craigslist. They only cost me a nerve-wracking drive up to San Francisco and being yelled at by a cranky pedestrian for stopping 1/2 way through the cross walk instead of running the red light.

The chairs needed some work, you don't get glamorously finished furniture "free" on craigslist. I particularly loved the curves on these chairs and particularly loathed the vomit-pink, Naugahyde the seats were covered in.

After a couple coats of dark brown spray paint they were already starting to turn into swans.

The transformation story hits a delay here...the first fabric I picked was cute but I neglected to take into account the reality of my children's dining habits. On the very first day one chair got a forkful of spaghetti dropped on it and in the second week of new life another chair was sloshed by a tsunami of chocolate-crispy cereal milk.

After six weeks, if you were looking for a paint color that best matched my new seat cushions you would have had to look in the: Over-cast-sky-preceding-a-wicked-downer-of-a-weather-week-gray section.

(photo too depressing to post)

Now the story can get back on the "crafty-cute" track. When it comes to crafting, my friend Liz has mafia type connections--her husband is Italian. I kid. Liz does have a friend who has access to adorable fabric not found here in California. So I promised Liz a Don Corleone favor and she let me check out her fabric supply.

AND NOW...

Liz also listened to me prattle on about messy kids and how I was too classy to protect my chairs with tacky plastic. Then she wisely told me to get over myself and cover the chairs in plastic.

I am so glad I listened--two days in and each chair has successfully survived Macaroni & Cheese, cold cereal and peanut butter!