2nd Annual Wiltoberfest

Voila! A small story on how we  saved our outdoor seating.

Last night we enjoyed hosting our 2nd Annual Wiltoberfest. In honor of Will’s birthday, we like to throw a beer/sausage/pretzel/mustard party and invite our friends to celebrate with us.

Last year, we were in our rental and had a beautiful backyard – 4.5 acres of Hill Country beauty to be exact! This year we celebrated in a slightly different, more urban environment but none the less we still had the fire going and all of our beer troughs out. However, with the move and the weather, our outdoor seating didn’t make it this year.

We had 8 very nice wrought iron chairs with leather seats and backs (a Craigslist find that we picked up a few years ago in Hutto). The leather had deteriorated and were becoming a hazard to our friends so we needed to find a way to make them functional again.

We had a friend suggest snaps to where the covers would snap on and we could snap them off to clean them. We had a friend suggest wood bottoms where all we’d have to do is staple the fabric on. We had a friend suggest throwing them away.  We had it all.

We ended up testing the snaps and they didn’t hold. So after a few tears, we bit the bullet and started down the path of the wooden bottoms and to my surprise, they were much easier to make than I thought!

We had Home Depot cut us 18″ x 20″ squares of 3/4 plywood (approx $16) and then Will and I got the circular saw and started trimming the sides at the right angles.

I gave them a light sand and then started wrapping the boards with our very cool Nautica waterproof fabric that I got 1/2 off at Jo Ann’s. Still expensive (approx. too much to say) but it was half-off so that’s something, right?

After the bottoms were in place, Will was not satisfied with the fact that they didn’t have backs, but with only an hour away from party time, I didn’t know if we could get backs that quickly. Thankfully we had professional guidance from our friend Micaelin. With her RISD degree in hand and our left over curtain backing ($2.95/yrd), we had very cute/somewhat Asian-inspired backs.

Take a look at the final product below(… and please disregard our impressive lawn. Our drought and heat wave this summer did a number on it.)

I have to say that the hours I stressed about these chairs were so much more painful than actually making it happen. I need to remember that for next time! Thank you Lindsey in Alpine, AL for the great suggestion for the bottoms and to Micaelin for slaving with me just hours before party time.