Jeans Chair....am I crazy?
By beccajo
I have the lovely TULLSTA Ikea chair. It's not high design, but it's light, comfy, and it was a steal at $99.
It is however, BEIGE. And while beige is a fun word to say over and over (try it, trust me), it's not the best if, say, you have pets or kids, or if you happened to position your chair under a window that had some plants in the windowsill that subsequently leaked on the chair. Yup.
WAIST NOT WANT NOT
Recently I've lost a little weight, and a few years back I went through a phase of turning old jeans into jean skirts. So I have lots of (too large) nicely weathered jeans, jean legs, and pieces layin' around. My idea...is......to create a nice slipcover for my TULLSTA chair out of the old denim. Because I have a lot of it, and because we all know from wearing jeans, denim goes with everything.
ME LIKEY
Anthro has this chair, Bertram, for 2500 smackers. That's a wee bit out of my price range right now. But I'm thinking I could get a similar look, large patchwork pieces, with all the colors and washes of denim I have collected. I'm also thinking of leaving the pockets on the jeans for the parts covering the outsides, so I can put my remote and cell phone it in while I curl up in front of the TayVay.....
While I do have a lot of slipcovering experience, I'm wondering, is this a fool's errand?
Will denim furniture make me look like a throwback to Better Homes & Gardens ca. 1989?
Did you like this article?
beccajo's blog (138 posts)
Subscribe to this blog
Member since: 11/08/06
About:
I'm obsessed with making the world a prettier place. I make my living as a production...
DestinybyDefinition
ps- call me crazy but I think that rediculously expensive chair is terrible.
DestinybyDefinition
I think you should throw all of your jeans in the washer with pink dye so they all have differently saturated pink tones in them (just my pick but any color really-green, purple, even bleach i suppose) it will still look like patchwork as the color will take to the lighter jeans better, but it won't be denim blue-at least not as much. I think it would be just enough to take away from that '89 BH&G feel.
jasimar
Damn, Beige IS fun to say. I like "ginger".
But denim, pockets, a fantastic endeavor. I would love to see. Me, though, I'd probably pick up a lost and loney chair at the thrift for under $20 with clean lines and possibility and canabalize that baby for patches with jean-goodness rather than slipcover the curvy lovely that is TULLSTA. But that's just me. I practice on things that can -only- get better even with my unsteady hand.
ModHomeEcTeacher
Beccajo,
Wished you lived close by. We have an old leather store downtown Indy called Landwerlyns. It is one of the old, creaky wooden floor stores with very dim lighting and the smell of hides and such. There are scraps of all sorts of things plus whole hides, etc. You take your scraps and plop them down on a big scale in the back. Tell the guy up front how much it weighed and it's done. I LOVE going in there. I keep telling them they need to stay in business until someone can film a scene for a movie in there.
I know--sorry PEDA, but I'm buying scraps.
dentedvw
I think you are right on regarding the late eighties look. It was a nice idea, but, ahhh... you know.
However, you seem to be on the right track with the leather scraps. Some years ago I was referred to a fellow who was upstairs of a run down bank building in our capital city's downtown. It was incredible, like a maze of thousands of different types of leather. He looked similar to many of his wares, and I knew right away I had found the right place. He found exactly the thing I was looking for, and it is still in terrific condition today. I was only making a set of towrope proof mittens, but it could have been a chair too, hid dedication to selection was incredible. Sadly, these types of places are all gone now, from here at least. All coffee shopped up now.
beccajo
So when I was at the anthro in chicago with my sister over the holidays, I got to see this chair in PERSON. And it was gorge. I loved it even more seeing it up close. They also had a wild chair upholstered in batik. I loved that one too, but I can't find any online photos.
The best part about both chairs, were they were made up of large, funky pieces of a lot of different types of fabric. Now, I have a LOT of fabric, I was thinking denim because I know it's pretty hard wearing, but the Betram was wool, silk, leather, all of it. It had menswear labels on some of the pieces, as it was ostensibly cut out of 'suit linings'. Yum.
There's a fantabulous fabric warehouse north of the Twin Cities and I've gotten large leather scraps there before. This might have to become a leather chair. Sorry PETA.
ModHomeEcTeacher
O.K. I've warmed by the Christmas fire so long I have come up with an idea for you. Fairly cheap if you have a fabric store close by. Why don't you pick up a yard of cotton canvas or duck in different colors and then....look at vintage stores or Goodwill or Salvation Army for leather pants or coat or skirt. Cut pieces to piece together "the look" and then embellish where it looks good with trim or gimp or whatever you fancy. The great thing about that pictured chair is the simple mix of fabrics and it looks like textures. You could even put in a piece of faux fur or even real fur you might find at an antique mall or consignment shop. Or you could just go with the denim and be done with it. (I tend to make things almost too much work)
booizzy
beccajo
hold on a tick! bemz is a great idea but it's gonna cost me almost as much as the chair cost in the first place!!!
I know upholstery isn't cheap.....but......YOWZA!
beccajo
ModHomeEcTeacher
B.Jo The Patchwork chair looks great. I think (having had my own upholstery design business) you may be disappointed with a jean slipcover. The patchwork is a good idea but blue denim probably won't look as zippy as you'd like. (no offense) Why not go to Goodwill and try to find brown, black and ivory jeans and knock off that picture you posted. That chair looks so interesting I may have to copycat you.
MHET
decor8
Head to the IKEA Slipcover capitol of the world for slipcovers made to fit only IKEA furniture. Here's the link:
http://www.bemz.com/
Best,
Holly Becker
Add a Comment!