Not Cheap … just thrifty !

As a lot of you know my daughter and her husband have an antique and used furniture business in New York state. I make at least one visit to them yearly and while there I often take some of the older items they have and hand paint them in hopes that it will make them more salable. This kitchen chair is an example…

…it is one of a set of six. The chairs, although solid and comfortable, were an ugly green and badly in need of refurbishing. So, to make a long story short I made up a design and you see the finished product here. I was pleased with the result and liked them enough that I talked my kids into taking them off the for-sale list and bringing them down to me on their next trip South …which happened to be last week.

They really fit well in my kitchen but were lacking cushions so I went on line to see what was available. When I totaled up what it would cost for 6 of them my old New England thriftiness kicked in and I decided I really didn’t want to spend that amount of money for something that I felt I could do myself.

I found an inexpensive piece of material on sale at our local fabric shop and that was all I needed to buy since I already had plenty of filling on hand.

After I finished the cushions I realized that they looked good but were very slippery and I didn’t want that to cause problems so I went in search of some chair grippers. Once again my thrifty side took over when I saw a 4x6 rug gripper and realized that it would make 6 2x2 foot squares and all I would have to do would be to cut off the 4 corners and they would be just the right size for my round cushions.

And it worked perfectly. I sewed them to the back of the cushions and they really do the job. There’s no slippage now and, best of all, with everything included it cost me less than $3 per cushion !!!

I told you I was thrifty…