Recovering Kitchen Chairs!

We have been very lucky to have been passed down furniture from both sides of our families, much of it very cool (if somewhat shabby) antiques.  We have actually purchased very little furniture, which is nice because we actually really like most of what we've gotten.

This kitchen table and chairs is the exception.

It's an early '80's vintage oak rectangular table and four chairs.  It has lived in my childhood kitchen, the back room at the orthodontic clinic where my mom worked, my first college apartment, and every subsequent dwelling I have inhabited.  I remember recovering these chairs with my mom when we were getting the set ready for me to take to college.  We picked out the upholstery fabric and went to town with the staplegun.  This fabric remained on these chairs until last week.

late '90's fabric update.  Sweet chairs, huh?

What I didn't expect when recovering these chairs was the virtual time capsule of upholstery fabric that lurked underneath.  It seems that when my mom and I worked on these last, we did not remove the old layers, thereby giving me a glimpse into upholstery fashions of the past.

Oh, you think it's time to get rid of this, do you?

Underneath the stained pastel diagonal floral/stripe was a boring layer of flecked beige in the style of early '80's office-furniture.  I didn't take a picture.

So here's our new finished product.

It's a little darker in person.

While not much can be done about the table and chairs, at least they now blend a little better with our rug/paint combo.  And of course, the high chair.

See?

 We'd love a new kitchen set, but for now this is totally sturdy, functional, and constantly splattered with kid spills/etc so it doesn't really make sense to replace it. And if this upholstery gets ruined, it was only a $20 fix to begin with, so I feel like we can reupholster after the kids have slowed down in destroying household items.

Plus, the cat likes it.