I noted yesterday that we had finally recovered our dining room chairs. Hooray! I bought these chairs last fall for about $5.50 each. Then I dumped an additional $80 worth of supplies into them - mostly spray paint, putty and more spray paint. You can read a breakdown, and see a slideshow of the transformation, here. While there, you might note that I had two options for recovering the cushions of these bad boys, and that I, shockingly, went neither way. The darker brown taupe was too high contrast for me, and didn't look good with the gray rug anyway. The pattern was too much too. I'm just a boring person right now in terms of basics. I like the basics to be neutral so I can go crazy in other ways. As I was organizing my fabric stash, I came across this nice light linen, from a curtain I thrifted for a couple bucks years ago. Perfect. It's light with out being white and it has some nice texture that, for me, makes everything a bit less formal than something shiny or smooth might have.
Jussst in case you're interested in a breakdown, recovering seat cushions like this is super easy (unlike recovering more complicated upholstery jobs). For these, you just unscrew the seat from the chair, iron your fabric (don't skip that step) and then staple on your new choice. Start with just one staple per side to make sure you haven't messed anything up (especially if you're working with a pattern) and then go crazy with staples, wrapping corners like you'd wrap a present. Trim off the excess and you're good to go.
And that's it! Some finally non-eyesore dining room chairs.