Trash to Treasure - Lawn furniture

A couple months ago, Gene painted our deck. In the process it was all cleaned off and I told him it would look really nice if we put some furniture on it.

Rather than go to the store and buy a set, I decided to just wait and see if I could find something decent at a garage sale. Literally, a few days later, I pull up to a sale and they had FOUR patio chairs, without cushions, otherwise great condition for three whole dollars.

Three dollars!

I'm in!

I knew that the most expensive part was going to be finding cushions for them, but I knew also, that if I waited, something would fall into my lap. A week later, it did! Here's how I fixed them up into something super comfy and kinda cute for my yard.

Left: We started with our basic patio chair, nothing fancy, but in super condition and sturdy.
Right: I bought 3 cans of spraypaint (krylon hammer finish) and painted them, pretty much exactly the same color. haha. I really stewed over the color too. In the end it was a good thing because I didn't have to worry about being perfect with the paint. You can see it's a slightly different sheen.

Know what this is? Take a wild guess. This is the cushions I found at a garage sale. I knew I'd have to alter it, but it might just work!

Figured it out yet?

It's a church pew cushion! That's not blasphemy is it? It's not like I stole it, I paid the church in their garage sale for it. hah.

One cushion was just long enough for 2 chairs, so I had to cut them in half. Not as hard as you might think, I'm not a perfectionist. I just folded it in half and cut on the fold. I then went back and cut back the inner padding approximately 2 inches to make room for the folds at the end.

I then folded over the raw edges 1/4" and pinned them together. The ends were carefully folded in, and the tie was added before sewing. It was difficult to sew across the open end as we're talking 4 layers of upholstery fabric.

I broke two needles and I'm not done yet! arg.

Left: This is what I used for ties. I used to sell twill tape in my scrapbooking business and this is left over. It would be better if it was red, but it was FREE so that makes it awesome. Plus it's much sturdier than plain ribbon.
Right: Approximately 23" from the top, I tacked 2 additional ribbons to tie to the bottom of the seat.

DONE!
Ok, maybe slightly ghetto, I wanted to sew across the fold but it was way too thick. In the end it saved me hundreds of dollars AND it's comfortable, so that's what matters most.

Difficulty: intermediate. You should know how to sew by hand very well, or have a machine. Otherwise all straight line sewing.

$3.00 - 4 chairs
$10.00 - 3 cans of spray paint
$1.00 (yes really) 2 church pew cushions
$0.00 - twill tape

Total cost for new set of patio furniture:
$14.00

A week later, Gene found a nice coffee table with a slate top, metal legs and we added that for a complete set. It's fun, and easily cleanable when the chickens poop on it. :/ That was $20.00, so $34.00 for a complete set.

So excited! My first "official" trash to treasure ;)
More soon! I have 2-3 projects in the works.

Please share your links to your favorite trash-redo.