Before & After: The Orale Louis Chair


Remember this old chair? I paid $5 for it at a garage sale down the street. When the lady told me the price, my eyes went all Jeckyll and Hyde fiendish, and I snatched it up. It's hard to run down the street with a chair while you're hunched over and drooling and grunting and your husband is waiting in the car for you and rolling his eyes. But you guys know what it's like. It's like Reefer Madness only with home decor. One woman's trash is another woman's crack. (That should be a poster on pinterest). So after many months of Jon's asking "what are you going to do with that chair?" and my answering "what can't I do with that chair?" to deflect from my total lack of plan of what to do with the chair, I actually did something with it.


I recovered it with a Mexican dress! And, no, it was not easy. See that part of the old velvet upholstery that hangs over the front? When I pulled that off, the wood underneath was clearly never intended to see the light of day. It was a wreck. Cheap wood. Rough. Unpainted. Glops of stain so thick it looked like tar. Eleventy billion nail holes. And as you can guess from the before pic, there was nothing salvageable under that fabric. In fact, everything not made of wood had completely disintegrated into toxic orange powder. I had to wear a hazmat suit to strip that thing down. But it all worked out pretty well, I think. And now I have a really pretty Mexican dress Louis chair. Orale!

Comments

  1. Holy cow! That is gorgeous!

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  2. This is absolutely amazing, I love it! Truly, you are the queen of reinvention.

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  3. Wow! That is amazing! It certainly doesn't look like it was easy. And I love your writing! :D

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  4. gorgeous chair. do you dare to sit on it? i mean aren't you afraid to damage that piece of art? ;)

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  5. That chair is FABULOUS!!!! Well done, that girl! Stroke of genius. What a pity Mexican dresses are like hen's teeth in Oz. Might have to embroider my own. It will fill in the decades till I find a chair as beautiful as this...
    Hugs from Down Under, Jasmine

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  6. I love it!! I think you'll enjoy it for years go come. Great job. p.s. I saw your blog from a friend's post on facebook.

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  7. wow. that looks amazing. and i LOVE that you used a mexican dress...how creative!

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  8. I love that chair. This has to be one of the best chair remodel I have seen

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  9. That is beautiful- a real international decor area! Is there anything more fun that redoing a chair? That will look amazing no matter how you use it. What does hubby think now?

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  10. Who would have thought! Love the mexican dress idea, looks great.

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  11. Hi Katie, I saw this on Design Sponge and I HAD to pop over to say I LOVE IT!!! You chose the most interesting and perfect fabric. Fabulous job!!

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  12. Hi Katie, I found this post via Design*Sponge and had to stop by and say how much I love your chair! Great choice on the upholstery - it looks like it was meant to be that way!
    I featured you on my blog today: http://welcometoheardmont.com/2011/11/friday-five-8
    Thanks for the inspiration,
    Meredith @ Welcome to Heardmont

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  13. Belíssima transformação... adorei e estou ficando e quando puder passa para conhecer meu cantinho (Arte e Mimos) e se gostar fica por lá também!
    Um lindo FDS pra você com muita Paz e Luz em teu coração
    Bjcas
    Graça

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  14. i just bought a chair like this at an estate sale for $13! the seat looks great in your redo! once we have 2 more chairs, i'm hoping to refinish them all. and now i'm almost scared to see what's under there!

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  15. Beautiful!
    Just found your blog. Love your writing and your creativity.

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  16. I just found your blog and I am laughing out loud on some of your posts! I have 2 of these chairs that I found at a garage sale about a year ago! I couldn't live without them. They are sitting in the shed getting even more destroyed as I type this. However, seeing your after photo may have inspired me to finally get to them :) thx!

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  17. Beautiful! You are every bit as clever in painting a picture as you are painting period.

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  18. I just found your blog. You are so funny! Oh, and creative.....

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  19. I LOVE YOUR BLOG! I LOVE THIS CHAIR, you are amazing!!!!

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