House of Misfit Furniture

I had a great day of treasure hunting one day and came home with this bounty:




A great haul! (Some day soon, I'll show you what I did with the buckets.) There among the mix of treasures was a barstool I paid too much for - $2.00. Yet, I liked it's weathered look and figured I could recover the seat and make it my own. It turned out that, better yet, my friend Lynette covered the seat for me - oh, happy day! She's a doll!

Since that time, I've come across barstools galore in people's trash, but I think twice before snagging them. I'm not sure Lynette intends to make a career of recovering barstools, and I'm sure I don't. And I don't want too many more barstools gracing the few empty spaces left in my home. I'll need that space for other treasures.

The seat on this one was a mess...

 ...but I liked the weathered cream colored paint job.

This bird fabric came from Ikea (it's been great for all sorts of things) and had been in my stash awaiting just such an occasion to shine. The cream legs had to go black (I spray painted them for speed) in order to make a nice contrast with all the white, and since Lynette offered to cover the seat for me, I said "YES!" (I'm no dummy.) She has mad seamstress skills and a just do it attitude. I accepted her offer, grateful not to have to worry about wasting my fabric on my own botched sewing job, which may or may not have even begun for who knows how long. 

 Much better, isn't it?

Finished product.

Since we did this one, Lynette also covered another one for me. Well, she's a project queen, like that.

I found this second little beauty in the trash on a garbage day junk run in a nearby neighborhood. You have to take what you get when treasure hunting, of course, and decide its use later. So I didn't have a plan for this one any more than the last, and since it was lying there getting pelted by a sprinkler and destined to doom if I didn't rescue it, I went ahead and threw it onto the back seat of my car, figuring I'd find a way to fit it into my life or the life of someone I know eventually. "Who can I give this to?" is the question I beg of myself as I hunt. Heaven knows I can't use all I find. Since this one had an entirely different feel from the first one, I couldn't exactly make the two match. As a result, I was now the caretaker of two barstool orphans. 

This got a good cleaning, and I shored up the broken strapping on it as best I could. I didn't want to put too much into it, not knowing what I was going to do with it. The top was a mess and had to come off - it was wet and smelly and torn.

Lynette - yes more Lynette - let me raid her fabric stash for something that would be suitable to the rattan. I thought this pattern would do nicely and would give it a kind of happy Florida flair, despite the brown background. 

Even though I don't need it, this fits in with the look of my Florida room, so it's hanging out there right now and has been a perfectly pleasant guest. 

However, now I have two barstools and no bar.  Hmph... I need to do a little matchmaking, I guess. Until the day I stumble upon some other lonely barstools to pair them with, they will hang out in the middle world that has become of my house... the house of misfit furniture. 

And that, my friends, is only the beginning.