In Which We Get Some Fantastic News And I Unearth A Chair Massacre

If you'd peeked into the window of my house today around 10:30 in the morning or so, you would have seen me dressed in yoga pants and a long t-shirt dancing crazily around in the middle of the living room in my socks and singing a ridiculous song, the lyrics of which went something like "We're getting night nursing, woo hoo! Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo!" 

It's very difficult to find anything to rhyme with "nursing," other than "cursing," which definitely did not fit the tone of the song.  Hence the "doo doo doos."

Anyway, so we got the call today that we officially qualify for forty hours of night nursing a week, and this is about the best news I've ever gotten in my entire life-- especially coming just after yet another night where Connor stayed up until three in the morning.  I have no idea what the heck I'm going to do with all of that sleep, but whatever it is I'm sure it will be awesome.  Also this is going to majorly cut down on the amount I spend on caffeine every month. 

Okay, so it will probably be a little weird knowing that somebody is sitting around in our house after I go to bed, but I'm sure I'll get used to it quickly.  It will probably take a couple of weeks to set things up, but that's okay.  I've waited six years for more than two decent nights of sleep in a row, so what's a couple more weeks?

In celebration, Connor and I went out to my favorite antique mall and found the last two pieces of furniture we needed for Ellen's room-- a little side table and a chair for her desk.  The chair I found had a beautiful frame, but was upholstered in a pink floral broadcloth that doesn't at all go with our girl's room.  Also we know that she's not a huge fan of pink.  I've recovered a few chairs in the past and it's not a terribly difficult project, so I went ahead and bought the chair with every confidence that I'd be able to fix it up in no time.

You can probably see where this is going.

So the previous owners of all the other chairs I've recovered in the past have been reasonable, rationally-minded people who used reasonable, rational amounts of hardware to affix their chosen material to the wood on the underside of the seat of the chair.  Once I got my chosen chair home and turned it over to take a close look at the underside, it was clear that I was not dealing with one of those reasonable, rationally-minded people.  Apparently the person who owned this chair before me had access to an industrial staple gun and severe anger issues, which is not a good combination.  The cambric on the bottom of the chair was attached with about forty staples, some of which had been driven so deeply into the wood that they were obviously going to be impossible to get out.

So I decided to cut the cambric off, which is when I discovered this:



There are 17 staples in the about three square inches worth of chair pictured here. 
The entire chair is like this.  Whee.

 There have got to be well over two hundred staples in the bottom of this chair.  I think that whoever recovered it last needs to take some courses in deep breathing or yoga, and also maybe not be allowed to touch any power tools ever, ever again.

So I think my best option is to put my new cover straight over this old one.  I kind of wanted to completely recover it because I was planning on adding some more padding, but I can probably just put a layer of batting over the old cover and then nail the whole mess on.  Provided I can find some space for my carpet tacks that isn't already covered in staples.

Sheesh.

~Jess