Kyle and I have a long history of trying to find good, productive hobbies to do together. They usually start off with Kyle getting an itch to try something out. Like the time he decided we ought to learn the art of calligraphy, or the time he decided to become a master artisan bread chef…
The tricky thing is, sometimes these spur of the moment hankerings my husband gets occasionally lead to life-changing talents, like the time he decided to learn Chinese, or the time he talked me into enrolling with him in Karate for the summer. And then sometimes they turn out to just cost us money and give us little in return, like the time he got his heart set on starting a business. So on one hand I do my best to temper his impulses if I feel they are too outrageous or expensive. On the other hand I hate to kill his enthusiasm. It’s one of my favorite traits of his.
Anyhow, this summer Kyle decided we should try our hand at upholstery, so we got some library books and looked up some DIY blogs to see what we could learn. After a few days of research we picked a project we thought we could handle and Kyle hit the classifieds, searching for our first furniture victims. After driving all over Salt Lake valley he came home with these lovely ladies:
As you can see, they needed some help. They had some broken pieces, at least one was a little unsteady on its feet, and the colors could slap you in the face from a mile away. Plus, several had been upholstered in picnic tablecloth fabric. Yuck. They didn’t get finished right away. They did get sanded right away, though, and took up residence in our kitchen.
However, after a couple of weeks my man came through! Together we sanded, fixed, painted and reupholstered each one of the chairs and then we sold them again, for more than we spent to buy them and fixing them up! We only made, like, 16 bucks, but it was our FIRST ATTEMPT, after all. Plus I think they turned out pretty great:
And you can rest assured that this will be a hobby we plan to continue. Three bar stools have already taken their place in our workshop/kitchen, just begging to be made pretty again. Look out for our next project!