Cane Back Chair Refurbishment

At the risk of sounding redundant: a) I learned a ton this being my first reupholster on this type of chair & b) I love refurbishing furniture! 

I've had this chair since the week I moved from Dallas - last July (almost a year!).  I found it at the North Dallas Antique Mall at Forest and Marsh in the last booth I looked in.  It met all my criteria:  Comfortable, solid, beautiful, and had some texture which I like to mix in my rooms.  I had originally been looking for a Louis style chair for my living room, but I am really into cane back and bamboo textures and was sold the second I laid eyes on it.  It had been a set of 2 chairs - but someone had already bought the other one.  That's probably a good thing because if I had bought both, this one wouldn't have made it into Evelyn's big girl room.

As you readers have already figured out - I went with the mid-hue green in Evelyn's bedspread to put on the walls.  All the fabric people are referring to it as "citron"; they just love being fancy, like that justifies the prices they charge to reupholster something for you.  Anyway, I found the pink fabric I used for the seat and cording (and cording on the ottoman) for $5 a yard!  It was originally $40 a yard - probably my best bargain find ever.  It is a linen and a bitch to work with though.  Again, for $5 a yard I was on the cusp of recovering everything in my house with this fabric.  The corally-pink of the fabric was originally the color we were going to paint the walls of the room, but it was just too much pink for me.  I'm better when I accent with pink.  It also matches the mid-tone pink in E's bedspread as well. 

The blue paint I used for the chair frame is Refresh by Sherwin Williams.  It is a stunning color and I'm probably going to paint everything I can in E's room with it (Already working on a nightstand).  Doesn't it just remind you of pool water? 

The project began with some sanding of the wood parts (not the cane back) and then painting on a layer of Kiehl's.  Then I sanded with a fine grit sandpaper and did 2 layers of the Refresh paint.  I finished off the frame with my favorite Mixwax water based polyurethane:

My biggest tip - and I had to learn this the hard way - is when reupholstering something like this, work the fabric from back to front.  I thought I would beat the system and worked front to back but now see why everyone recommends it the other way around.  I just stapled the fabric onto the frame and then covered the staples with the double cord welting that I hot glued on top of it. 

I had never done the double cord welting before and it in itself was a learning experience.  I'm going to do a post on how to do your own, and it really looks great on wood framed chairs. 

I did the chair and ottoman as a place for E and I to read books; she's already dragging the ottoman over to the bed as a way to climb up and then she says "Mommy, let's read a book in my bed."  So there goes that hope.  At least it looks good, right?