A few months ago I received an order from a client who had been an art teacher for more than 30 years. The only instructions she gave me was that she liked magenta and turquoise and needed the fabric to be durable. And most importantly, she wanted some color in her life! So basically, I could do anything I wanted to these chairs.  What a fun challenge!
I selected the following antique chairs and stripped the arm chair’s finish to give it a farmhouse look. Then, I sanded it, cleaned it up,  and applied a clear wax to seal the wood. 


The two armless chairs, while a different style, have a beautiful shape and a comparable size. The wood would get a fresh celery green chalk paint that I had custom mixed at Benjamin Moore. 

Next, I began looking at fabrics. Knowing I needed to make it durable made me gravitate towards velvet, which I knew would hold up nicely. I’ve been in love with Kim Parker’s fabrics for a while, which I’ve used on chairs in my own kitchen (click here to read more about those chairs). Her fabrics come in both linen and velvets. I had used her linen and loved it. But I had never used the velvets. Oh, la la! Yep, that’s a velvet floral!

I had a hard time selecting just one floral, so I went with three different ones. What an amazing selection of fabrics she has! The first, was a velvet with a black background. Amazing!

The second was a super fun sunflower velvet with hints of purple and lavender. 


And the third chair was the fabric that I had previously used in linen…another favorite of mine because of the fun, fresh colors. 

I then selected seat fabrics in solid velvet. All of these velvets and most fabrics today are pretreated to make them resistant to stains and super durable for use. Since she specified that she like magenta and turquoise, I had to make sure those were included as part of the color scheme. The other one was lavender, which looked amazing with the stripped down wood. 

Next, I looked back to Kim Parker’s stripes, also in velvet. There are at least four different color ways in these stripes. Each one ties to the other fabrics on the chair. 





I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of this rich fabric combination. It’s definitely colorful and luxurious! 

What about you? Are you drawn to color too, or does this much color scare you?  I wish I could keep these three sisters around my own home, but they are on their way to Phoenix, Arizona! I can’t wait to hear about how they work in this art teacher’s home.