Kitchen Chairs – A dilemma
Oct 9th, 2009 by S. Anderson
A few months ago, when we had just gotten back to Virginia and found our new house, I set out on the quest to find a dining room table. And, I was successful! I found a great table for a great price. I just needed to find the right chairs. And, I did.
This is the Isabella Chair from Pottery Barn. We love the one in red. But, we didn’t love the price tag. No way that we could justify spending almost $600 for four chairs for a table that was less than $75. So, we headed down to the Virginia Bazaar to see what we could find. And, again, we hit pay dirt!
We found four chairs that look almost exactly like these that I found on this site (I was too lazy to go out to the garage and take pictures of ours). And, now that I have seen these chairs, although they are in better shape, I am realizing that the $5 a piece we paid for the four we got made them an amazing deal. They seem to be circa early 1900’s. Like I said, ours aren’t in amazing shape. They need some wood glue and new seats. We are also going to paint them this color.
It is a great Behr color. And, it will really make the chairs pop. What is the dilemma you might ask? Well, the pretty blue gingham fabric on the existing seat covers isn’t going to cut it. And, I have been looking for some fun fabric that will look great in our kitchen and allow us to pull in a lot of other colors in the same hue as the red above. And, I have narrowed my choices down to these two.
The first you might recognize as Alexander Henry’s Mocca. And, I have some of this downstairs. It is a print I love, but I am concerned about how well it will hold up because it isn’t really decorator or upholstery weight. The second is a specialty organic fabric from an awesome designer, Daisy Jane, that I have been eying for a while. It is definitely pricey, but it is perfect, and I love it!
My dilemma is which one? Now, I know what most of you will say. With a baby on the way, expensive fabric that we going to be sitting on is probably not a good idea. But, that is why it is a dilemma. I am wondering if this should be our one spot to splurge on this project, particularly since we wouldn’t need a ton for the four chairs.
Now I don’t consider that a dilemma at all. Get the first one. The one you love. Buy enough to cover the chairs a couple times. And recover them as needed. When you finally must choose a new fabric to recover them in because you’ve run out of your favorite, you’ll probably be ready for a change, anyway.
If the pricey one is sturdier and will hold up better than a regular quilting cotton, then it’s worth a bit extra. If it’s the same weight, well, I can’t help you there.
By the way, I have a chunk of Mocca, too. Love Alexander Henry!
I love both prints, so I’m not much help but I want to talk to you about a project idea about blogging for CW2010. I know you’re very busy but I thought I’d run it past you to see if you were interested. But I can’t find your email address. So will you send me your updated contact info in an email?
I’m partial to the first one, but I think you already know that!
i love the first one and have made projects with it so that would be my vote, but they are both beautiful!