New dining chairs (and my first attempt at reupholstery)...

The popularity of faux-bamboo Chippendale style chairs has been in train now for quite a few years - and I've always liked the thought of how easily these chairs lend themselves to so many different colours, fabrics and interior styles.

Although I have a lovely antique oak dining table, I have been living with some basic ikea dining chairs for the past 6 years. Whilst perfectly serviceable, they were really a make-do option until I found something I really liked.

Over the past year I have intermittently searched ebay and gumtree for dining chair options. While the faux-bamboo chairs seem to be quite easy to obtain in the US, they are very rare here in the UK...unless you want to buy new, and then they retail for about £600 each. So, I had put the thought of these aside and was focusing my search on antique bentwood chairs. However, they brought their own issues - by the nature of their construction, and their age, they were often not the sturdiest or most comfortable chairs on which to spend several hours sitting over a leisurely dinner.

Then in February this year I found the unexpected on gumtree - not only that, but they were actually located in my own town in Kent. I quickly became the owner of four of these...

The chairs and upholstery were in good condition, but a renovation project beckoned. I read many blog posts of others who have done this before me...essentially, it wasn't too difficult - mainly an exercise in perseverance and endurance (and not to mention blisters) in order to remove hundreds of staples.

Over a rainy Easter weekend, I turned my garage into spray-painting central, making repeated trips out to apply layers of white paint.

A few evenings with a staple gun to recover the chairs, and a glue gun to apply the trim, and the chairs were complete...

Of course, now that these are finished and in place in my dining room, it has highlighted the changes I still want to make to that space - so a few more tasks have been added to the to-do list...