This is not an interior design blog where you get to see the ugly before version of these chairs to compare to the beautiful new version. Trust me when I say the fabric covering these chairs was in bad shape, and I was completely disgusted looking at them up close as I removed them.

I’ve been wanted to do this project for years, and only recently did I finally commit to doing it. The first step was meauring the chairs, and then taking a look at fabric. I bought the crazy patterned 100% cotton fabric from Dressew, along with two rolls of fibre fill to add more padding.

The chairs are not well made and could actually use a lot more work to make them better overall, but I decided I would only replace the fabric and add a bit more padding rather than do a complete overhaul. I don’t think they are worth the effort.

The chairs look amazing now. I’m very happy with the intense blast of crazy colour and pattern in the dining room. We need to have guests over soon for dinner to try them out.

A huge thank you to my friend Arnt, who helped me with the final stages of stapling the fabric to the chairs. I was totally freaked out by the industrial stapler he has in his studio, and I probably would have stapled my hand to the seat.

Just in time for December I got my act together and achieved a long held desire to have an lovely advent calendar for Boris and I. As a child my mom would put up an advent calendar strung with chocolate treats for my sister and I to countdown our way to Christmas. It was made by one of my aunts and featured cross-stitched elves on it with plastic rings to attach the treats.

I bought this Christmas-tree-with-drawers version at DeSerres a few weeks ago and decided I would customize it with my own designs. It comes in plain wood, is pretty roughly made, and needs a fair amount of sanding before you paint.

I painted with red acrylic, and gave the entire piece one coat with two coats of paint on the front of the drawers and the outside of the tree. I asked Boris to help do some of the painting so things would go faster. I drew on each drawer with metallic silver gel pen, and made each drawing unique. This was the part I found most challenging and fun. It’s awkward to draw on such a small surface, but I loved coming up with twenty-four different designs.

Boris and I each need to select twenty-four tiny treats to put into the drawers for one another. I think this is going to be the best part.