Projects as of Late

Suit Case Chair

I have been checking out a lot of crafting and decorating books at the library, and I have been trying to decorate my living space creatively to feel motivated every day and to feel like it is a place that I have created and be proud of it. I found this idea in a book on reusing materials, to make a chair out of an old suitcase. I love the look of old suit cases, and this was a really cool idea to keep them around, and the only thing we bought new to make it was screws. We took an old suit case that we liked and picked out some scrap fabric from the thrift store I thought would go wellwith it. While we were there, we also grabbed some old foam seat cusions (instead of buying upholstering foam), a white sheet and a foam pillow with a padded case. We went to a resale store and bought some chair legs that had been taken off of its previous seat. The other supplies we needed were four 2x4s cut to size (2 for the bottom and 2 for the top), and 2 flat boards (ply wood would work here) cut to fit in the top and bottom of the suit case. We improvised on a lot of our materials, what we already had, and what we found for cheap, the total making cost was about $13 total. Assembly was a task, but we were only using hand tools except for a drill, a skill saw would be a peach for this project. We screwed the two 2x4s in place on each side spacing them out,then screwed the legs into them. Next, we cut the foam seat cushions out to fit on the board, and placed the foam pillow on top (all this could be replaced with upholstering foam) and used a staple gun to upholster the bottom seat, and then just set the upholstered board on top of the 2x4s. We upholstered the board to fit the back, using a white sheet as fabric, and a padded pillow case for the back (you don't need to use very much padding for the back),and then slid that into place. Then your all done! you can add rope or cord on the sides to keep the back from falling, we just leaned it up against a wall. I love this chair. There was also a version of doing just the bottom for a little bench or a foot rest, or one with no legs for an animal bed, both I thought were great ideas.