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Sunday, 27 March 2011

Getting butterfly chair covers made

I've taken a leaf from Jason's book and will not put off spending what I can spend today.

We have two butterfly chairs which need to be refurbished. It has been on the to-do list for quite a while. There was never the right time to organise it...until now.

I have two chair frames which are slightly different in size (probably DIY backyard jobs from the 1960s).

You can buy ready-made butterfly chair covers at quite a few places. I've done the maths and sadly, as our chairs are not standard sizes, the covers need to be tailored to the frame. This is a job for someone other than me!

My friend Chris said that he would help me make a pattern. Yesterday, he came around with one of his butterfly chair covers which fitted quite well on one of our frames. He's kindly going to lend it to us for a while so it can be used as a template.

Butterfly chairs
Chris' cover is made from thick, super heavy-duty outdoor canvas. I will probably use a similar quality canvas so we can use the chairs outdoors.

I haven't decided on the colours yet, although I am leaning towards a mod orange or sunny yellow with a contrasting white trim.

Chris also made adjustments on the old green chair cover. It was never a perfect fit on the frame as it had sagged and stretched over time. With the magic of a few pins, masking tape and carefully marked instructions, we have another good template to take to the upholsterer.

The butterfly chair frames will also need attention, but I can certainly do that myself. It is nothing that a little steel wool, elbow grease and a few cans of metal spray paint can't handle.

I'll keep you posted on our butterfly chair progress!

13 comments:

  1. I think some bright yellow covers will look fantastic, good luck with them. ;-)

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  2. They are going to look sensational.

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  3. Yep, sounds like the right time to get these jobs done! They will look amazing.

    Pam x

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  4. Good on you!

    Go the orange. Not that I'm obsessed with it or anything.

    TDM x

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  5. Excellent. I like the idea of orange, sounds fab! Although I have always liked that green colour are you going to do the baby one too?

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  6. Orange'd look good especially with that German planter sitting next to it.

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  7. Orange or yellow will look hot -can't wait to see the new covers x

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  8. Oooo, good luck with that project! Either orange or yellow will look so pretty.

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  9. You'll get a lot of those made for the price of a new car (or bathroom Reno)
    :)

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  10. How funny, last week I dropped off my two butterfly chairs to be given new covers. We are going for cowhide as they will be inside. I had them powder coated at PJ Powder Coatings first - they guarantee they won't rust and at only $60 per chair I thought this was a great investment as I am not too good at the scrapping and cleaning thing (they had a bit of rust). Will do a post on mine when they return. Can't wait to see how yours turn out. Michelle

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  11. Orange or yellow would be perfect for your house.

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  12. Luffly. Nice work with the new suit too Jase. Mr FF prefers Canali. x

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  13. Oh FF. Don't encourage him! Give him a taste of high-end designer and he'll never go back to off-the-rack at DJs. One day I saw him researching where he could get a tailor made suit in Brisbane...Ha!

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