Toillemazingful

My parents came and went, the weekend came and passed. The heat is still here. Go figure.

Sweaty backs and glazed eyes aside, it was a great weekend. We took in an amazing Broadway show, visited a fascinating museum, ate at an incredible deli, fanned ourselves on the benches of an extraordinary park, and so forth (I'd go into more detail, but I'm running out of over-the-top adjectives).

The most outlandish descriptives however, belong in the description of my parents. Fantasticful? Amazriffic? Not only did they walk for hours in beastly heat with (slightly pained?) smiles on their faces, not only did they assure me "the apartment feels fine" while they mopped sweat off their foreheads, but they went so far as to do a little manual labor with me.

See this pattern? I'm sure you've seen it before. It's called toille, and a few weeks ago I decided that it was the fabric I wanted to reupholster my dining room chairs with. Never mind that I don't have the tools or the proper know-how to refinish a chair; my parents have all that! My dad owns just about every tool known to (reasonable, middle class) man, and my mom just took a furniture reupholstering class last year. How could I have access to such riches and not take advantage of it? Did I mention that my mom even went out and found the fabric for me? Do you hear that little note of guilt in my voice?

Sunday morning we took an hour, a screwdriver, a staple gun, a couple yards of fabric, and about three liters of sweat, and made four of this:

My decorating style has a sort of elegantly mismatched thing to it, and these chairs fit in perfectly. I love the contrast between the old colonial-style fabric and the mid-century modern chair frame. And since my dad generously donated the staples and my mom found a great deal on the fabric, the whole project cost about $10. Or to be honest, it was free. She wouldn't let me pay for the toille. Again, do you hear the guilt in my voice?