Reupholstered Mid-Century Lounge Chair Makeover

The story of our made-over mid-century lounge chair actually all started back in January of 2015. We purchased the chair (along with a super cool leather ottoman) from our very favorite Lynchburg-based vintage furniture and accessories dealer, Galaxie Modern. Because the piece needed a bit of help in the springs and upholstery department, we got a great deal on the chair, and a spruce up was immediately added to our long list of furniture things to do when the time was right.

Now let’s fast forward to October of last year. We had just moved into our forever house and were getting all of our furniture settled into their new spaces when the team behind BuyFabrics.com happened to reach out with the offer of a partnership. As soon as I had a chance to look through the upholstery fabric options on their site, I knew exactly what needed to be addressed once and for all: our sad, deflated little orange lounge chair, which you can see in all its former glory a couple of photos below and in this living room tour from our old townhouse.

I actually liked the original orange fabric of the lounge chair just fine, but as this was my first foray into major furniture reupholstery, I decided to go for a bigger, more dramatic change. The final choice? Spectrum Mist Blue Solis Outdoor Fabric by Sunbrella. As you may have noticed, I’m typically drawn to cooler colors and patterns layered over hints of warm wood, so a bright yet desaturated blue was the perfect color for our MCM lounge chair. Going with a durable yet soft Sunbrella fabric also meant that we got style without having to worry about stains in the long term.

As soon as our chosen upholstery fabric arrived from BuyFabrics.com, I called up our favorite local reupholsterer, Phil’s Upholstery, and had the chair dropped off for its makeover within a matter of days. Of course, the busy season had just descended on Phil’s and it would be another six months before we saw our made-over chair, but the epic results were more than worth the wait.

The moral of this story? Patience, of course, is a virtue, but also that you can get the look of those designer furniture options you love without shelling out major, major bucks. My advice is to source a well made piece that is clean and comfortable enough for the short term, but plan to have it reupholstered when time and budget allow. Taking the transformation in smaller steps allows you to save up for the makeover, and in the end, you’ll be left with a beautiful custom piece that you can cherish for generations, and all for a fraction of what you would pay from knock off designer furniture stores.

Big thanks to BuyFabrics.com for making this momentous moment a reality, and now I’m curious to know which fabric YOU would have chosen to reupholster our mid-century lounge chair in. Are you on Team Mist Blue, or would you have gone with a pattern? If you’re leaning towards the latter, click back to see my favorite mid-century inspired BuyFabrics.com patterns here and tell me what you would have done.