Spring has sprung! Outdoor space revamp.

Nicer weather has finally arrived in North Carolina! One of my favorite things about our new home is the screened in porch. Coming from California, I thought that screened in porches were the epitome of southern living. Random side note, in California, all the southerners I knew would set up shop in their garages. Seriously. They'd have couches, tables, BBQs, and would almost set up a second living room in their garage. It makes total sense to me now, they were just looking for their screened in porch! That has to be the reason because I haven't seen a single person in the dirty south hanging out in their garage like the people in California did...

So, this post is a little bit about a DIY gone wrong, but has a happy ending (no, not THAT kind of happy ending :) See, we have four chairs with seat cushions and back cushions, that looked like this...

Gross right? We bought this patio set at Lowe's probably 4 years ago when we moved off base and into our little beach house. We wanted an outdoor space and paid a hefty penny for this set. I'm disturbed, shocked, and disgusted with how much outdoor patio sets can cost. Even the ghetto ones from Wal-Mart are expensive! Anyways, we left them outside, year round, for 4 years. I'm pissed at myself for letting this happen.

Anyways, what had happened wasssss, I had an idea to just remove the old covers, dye them a darker green, and slap them back on, and laugh at how much replacement cushions would have cost me.

Well, I def messed up, two things:

1. I thought the cushions had zippers, they didn't. I know. I know. I should have looked before I left the house, but this epiphany came to me in the middle of the laundry section of the store, and I just went with it.

2. The covers didn't dye. I'm an idiot. Patio furniture cushions are waterproof, AKA they ain't soaking up shit, Tina!

So, there was I was. With all these chairs, and all these cushion insides taking up valuable real estate on my porch, and no cushions. If you've ever looked at replacement cushions, you know those can be pricey. For instance, the ones I wanted, and didn't even like that much, would have been $300 after all was said and done. Yeah, screw that.

So, I was walking around the store, and saw this rug, and the sky parted, and the angels starting singing, and I KNEW what I was going to. I grabbed this rug, and headed off to the sheet section. I ended up buying two King sized flat sheets in two colors, and came up with my replacement idea. See, since it's a screened in porch, I didn't need to have fancy water proof ish, that stuff isn't going to get wet. In a few years when we move back to California, and have had this set for probably over 7 years, I'll just get a new one. But, for now I needed a quick fix.

So,  I just reused all the old stuffing, which was like brand spanking new due to those fancy waterproof cushions! The old cushions were sewn insides out on three sides, turned to the right side, stuffed, and then sewn closed on the forth side. So, I just measured out the old pillows and cushions, and sewed my own.

As you can see, the dog loves them, that's his chair, but I thought that the chairs just looked too plain, that they needed a little throw pillow or two...

So, I had some leftover red from the pillows and canvas material laying around the house. I drew a paisley print on the canvas material with a pencil, and then went over it with some acrylic paint.

Then I pinned it wrong sides together with the sheets.

Cut it out, and sewed around three sides, turned it inside out, stuffed it, and then used this video tutorial on how to do a closing stitch. I think it's the best sewing tutorial I've ever seen.

Then I was happier with the outcome of the cushions! I think it just makes it look a little less homemade, and ties the colors together.

Here is the whole set! See that weird little metal thing? It's from the fireplace in the house, it vents onto the porch to heat the porch as well. Weird, right?

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, overall it only cost me $30 to completely redo the cushions and create a happy new outdoor space area.

And last, but not least, who's the cutest cattle dog you've ever seen?

That's right Smokey.