The Whatzits.

That's what my mom calls them, anyway, when you want to do something, but you're not sure what, so you kinda poke around at everything, looking for whatever strikes your fancy.

Right now, these chairs strike my fancy.

I love these chairs. They were an estate find that I bargained down to ridiculous cheap, and for the longest time they made me smile every time I came up the stairs.

Well, after three years and a parade of nine various cats coming and going through our home, they look more like this:

And that makes me sad. Not stabby, because even I wasn't silly enough to believe the cats wouldn't get their paws on them, but they stopped giving me that feeling of "wow!" and started making me pity them.

So I've been shopping upholstery fabric online, and I need to request some how-to books from the library, but I think this may be my next project.

Of course, we have like, 38748217219 projects still going on right now, but aside from the master bathroom (more on that in another post) none of them are EPICALLY HUGE. Well, maybe refinishing the entire first floor is kinda huge, but it doesn't feel the same as trying to drywall an entire room or lay hardwood or anything. And the truth of the matter is, there isn't much I can help with right now -- and won't be for some time. I'm going to have two kids under two, what free time am I going to have for massive tasks? Exactly. This seems like something I could work on in little bits after bedtime or something, slowly taking my time to be meticulous and thorough, especially since this is my first time trying to re-upholster something.

Now, follow me. I don't intend for these chairs to stay here. I've finally convinced Kyle that a built-in window seat would be perfect in the upstairs landing. My plans include storage and all kinds of fun -- a nice place for the cats to sit and look out the window, or the kids to sit and read, or me to just take a breather from lugging 27687 loads of laundry from the basement to the kids' rooms. Basically, it has the potential to be bliss. (We also plan on addressing that very wobbly, very un-kid friendly banister there, but again, not a huge project and kinda less fun.)

But what about the chairs? Well, we really only have about two places they could fit other than where they are -- the as-yet-to-EVER-be-completed dining room, or the living room. Since we don't even have a table for the dining room or anything yet, I think we've settled on the living room, probably right around here:

Now, it's just finding the right fabric. Our Ektorp couches have two black-and-white covers, one floral and one striped that you can see a peek of there. And, obviously, the room is dark burgundy. We want the chairs to still pop, but not be like OMG LOOK AT THOSE CHAIRS and not tacky or necessarily predictable. We also want to be able to move them to another room if need be and not have them look awkward.

I'd like if they could be velvet, but with kids and cats Kyle thinks that's a bit lofty of a goal.

So what thinks ye? Any ideas on fabric choices? This isn't an immediate project, but something I've just begun to think about, so no pressure to help me come up with the perfect solution. Just throwing it out there to the cosmos and seeing what comes back.