Evolution

DISCLAIMER: No Neaderthals were harmed in the making of this blog post.

SIDE NOTE: This story is much more impressive if you click on the photographs to enlarge them.

Once upon a time, a Brilliant, Beautiful, and Extremely Young Lady
(hyperbole perhaps?)
discovered a diamond in the rough

at her favorite furniture store in town.
It had a seriously BAD paint (an unbelievable peach/cream color) job,
and the most Hideous 70s Floral Fabric you ever saw.

It was only $20.00.

However, the B.B.a.E.Y. lady's hubbers assured her that she got ripped off.
For shame!

Not being afraid of a little hard work

(unless it involves cooking, ironing, landscaping, childcare, vomit, etc.),

B.B.a.E.Y. lady set to work prying off old rusty nails and staples

(not up-to-date on tetnus shot! Yay!)

and peeling back layers of fabric.

As in, layerS plural.

First there was the Hideous Floral Fabric.

And then there was the Non-Descript Boring Upholstery Fabric.

And then there was the Dusty Faded Stained Damask Fabric,

complete with mouse poo.

And low and behold, there was even masking tape holding the split base together.

Ingenious!

But oh, those chair legs which were one of the main attractions of the chair in the first place.

Ironically similar to the hubber's attraction to the B.B.a.E.Y. lady's legs in the first place.

So there.

And who wouldn't want to hold hands with this??

As excavation continued, it was discovered that the original cushion was stuffed with horse hair.

And one lone button.

First, there was the skanky bottom cushion

(side note: in his defense, this was how the chair looked when hubbers first saw it).

And then it was gone.

Stripped down to the wooden frame and the metal ummm....supports?

But through it all, the icky paint job remained.

Until...

...along came the wonders of stripping (no, no! not me silly!)

with CitriStrip ($10.99)!

And, oh, you never saw paint come off so easily.

And so non-smellily (don't spell-check that one).

A second coat of this miracle solvent also took off more of the original stain.

And then it was sand-y, sand-y, sand-y down to this final glory.

And hubbers was still pretty unimpressed and mentioned things like:

The Marvels of Buying Brand New Furniture

and

Lead Paint Removal Giving Us Future Children With Three Heads.

Don't get your hopes up grandparents:

NO MORE GRANDCHILDREN THREE-HEADED OR OTHERWISE.

Which all culminated this past Saturday with a

Stain, Polyeurothane and Re-Upholstering Extravaganza!

In doing some re-upholstery research

(since B.B.a.E.Y. lady had never done this type of thing before),

it turns out that horse hair is one of the best stuffings for chair cushions.

Now while the bottom cushion just seemed too, too disgusting to re-use

(although several websites suggested washing and re-using it),

it was decided that the back cushion would remain as is.

With horse hair exploding out of the top.

Thankfully, with the aid of her trusty staple gun,

a little felt here,

a little foam there (two pieces for $12.99 each)

and two yards of fabric in a great trellis pattern

(at $9.99/yard)

led to...

Voila!

A masterpiece!

I do believe hubbers owes B.B.a.E.Y. lady a $20.00 dinner.

At which he will be eating crow.