Upcycled Chair with Faux Wicker Finish – Dogs vs Cats Episode 9
Have you missed the zany tales of my family members with tails?
Rest assured they are still up to their merciless destruction. I write with complete confidence that they will not rest, but will continue to labor without pause or concern for themselves or my sanity, to find new and previously un-imagined avenues to wreck my home. Their efforts keeping me ever inspired to find new and ridiculous ways to repair the carnage.
If you are new here let me bring you up to speed and make some introductions. A little over a year ago we invited four furry and sweet little creatures into our lives. Two of them got much bigger and and soon we found ourselves submerged in all the CRAZY that comes with puppies and kittens. They are cute and they are fun and they can cause a lot of wear and tear and straight up damage to just about anything.
Fortunately for me and them too, I like a challenge and I like to fix things. So began the series of posts titled Dogs vs Cats. The competition is fierce between the Cat Monsters and The Dogzillas. Anything is fair game and could be pegged as the next target. The Cat Monsters have cunning and stealth on their side while the Dogzillas have a distinct weight and size advantage. Fortunately for the humans all this destruction does tend to wear out the poor four legged fur balls and they do a fair amount of sleeping. In these quiet moments between assaults I ponder and experiment to see if I can fix the would be trash, usually with some other trash.
And now the introductions.
Dogzilla 1 – AKA Boom Boom Alpha Doom. She has a funny sideways gate when she runs making it appear that her back end is always trying to get in the front, an under-bite that makes her look like she is constantly frowning and the desire to always be the center of attention. (I am pretty sure she wanted to be an only child.)
Cat Monster 1 – AKA Daredevil. Favorite activities include posing for photographs, causing the Dogzillas constant consternation by showing up in new and unexpected places that she must be chased out of and most of all antagonizing Boom Boom with the fact that she is not an only child.
Dogzilla 2 – AKA Miss Mad Dog Mayhem. This beauty school drop out had the perfect eyeliner applied to her pretty little face, but was a little too….lets say “touched” to complete the program. Everything is a game and nothing is to be taken seriously. Humans are not to be listened too. Cats are for chasing and her sister dog Boom Boom exists primarily to be sat upon, tackled, chewed and otherwise generally irritated.
Cat Monster 2 – AKA Sabertooth but I am changing his alias to Blurry Face as he does not like to have his picture taken. He is the recluse of the group and follows the strict protocol of the dog and cat hierarchy. He is the least likely to raise the ire of Boom Boom. I am how ever certain that most of the chair destruction was by his paws or should I say claws during middle of the night raids when the Dogzillas were tucked securely in their kennels.
Please note that all names have been changed to protect the guilty.
If you have been following this blog for awhile you might think you are having deja vu as you have already seen this wacky chair. But no, there has not been a ripple in the Matrix. There are actually two chairs. If you saw the first chair you may have already thought that I needed to have my head examined so the absurdity of a second chair might be more than you can take. To make it a little more palatable for you I am calling this second chair a faux wicker chair because that sounds so much less absurd than a pickle juice chair.
Newbies did I loose you again? It may be difficult for you to keep up at times as projects do sometimes feel like they are traveling down rabbit holes getting curiouser and curiouser but I assure you that even though things are not always as they seem, I do say what I mean and therefore you must accept that I did in fact cover my living room chairs in pickle juice to fix them.
It started with the ruined pleather chair(s) pictured above and the desire to recover them with something kitty claw proof. You can read more about the whole process in the first installment of Dogs vs Cats. I wrote this post and made the first chair back in June of last year. The first chair is holding up very well so it seemed to be time to attempt the second chair.
Here is a short video showing how one section was made using the “pickle juice glue”
The glue recipe can be found here.
Here are the two finished chairs and if you look closely you may even see a couple of other Dogs vs Cats projects
You can catch up on all the Dog vs Cat Monster Episodes below.
The Trouble With Cats and The Making Of A Pickle Juice Chair – Episode 1 Dogs vs Cats
The Trouble With Dogs and Another Pickle Juice Repair – Dogs vs Cats Episode 2
Episode 3 Dogs vs Cats – Easy Upcycled Door Latch
Upcycled Tin Can Lid Table Top Cover Up – Episode 4 of Dogs vs Cats
The Battle Over Bedding – Dogs vs Cats Episode 5
Cat Clawed Curtain Camo Repair – Dogs vs Cats Episode 6
Bed Sheets and Bath Towels Upcycled Christmas Stockings – Dogs vs Cats Episode 7
Innocent Purse Caught In The Crossfire – Episode 8 Dogs vs Cats
Happy Upcycling,
My husband died in 2005 of the same brain tumor we’re hearing more about. Watching him go through hell for his last year, my fur babies kept me relatively sane after his death. I have chihuahua and they can’t drink out of the toilet or get food out of the big container so it required me getting up and meeting their minimal needs.
My Chief, short chunky guy who slept on top of the down comforter at my ankles I discovered snored. Zeus, liked to sleep under the down comforter and on top of the feather bed at my butt. I like to read in bed.
It’s quiet and peaceful, I’ve been reading about 20 minutes, as usual Chief is now bored and struggles on his short legs to cross over my ankles to wade through all the fluffiness headed toward the head of the bed.
Zeus starts making his little high pitched warning noise which is like a homing device sound. The closer Chief gets, the louder Zeus gets. When he’s close enough to the noise he pounced on Zeus. WW something begins and eventually they get to the head of the bed so Zeus is out of the covers. This is a nightly ritual.
The battles are usually a couple minutes at the most and they go back to their favorite spots. Everything quiet until the next night.
Did I mention king sized bed and add several pillows all in cases- sigh. ?????
So one night I noticed a tiny speck of blood on my page. I’d been trimming roses so figured I’d picked the scab off a tiny scratch. Then another one, then a slightly larger one.
Turned over to see a scene from a Stephen King novel. Chief had nicked an artery on the edge of Zeus’s ear and it was spurting, he was flapping those ears. Grabbed up the dog, grabbed a wash cloth, took 20 minutes of holding pressure for it to completely stop.
Got several bath towels to cover the gore. Threatened to kill both of them. Had already learned that good old hydrogen peroxide gets rid of the blood but with him shaking his head and therefore flapping those ears, I had little speckles of blood all over the place. It took 2-3 days to wash and dry everything. And it’s amazing how far it can go. Found spots 12′ from the crime scene.
We had a conure who hung from various levels of the shower curtain and fibrillated the wallpaper on the corners. We had a cat who would chase flying things and trap them in the sheers where he could chew them up as they were wrapped in the layers. I gave up on sheers and took them down. He found other ways to entertain himself and retaliate for removing his favorite play things.
They are never boring, they absolutely adore you. Even if you yell and fuss they try to come give you love and kisses.
I now have Camilla, a vanilla colored princess who loves raw vegetables and sitting on Autumn like she’s s chair. Buster the flying squirrel and overly efficient house alarm, and Autumn whose belly is only 2-3″ from the floor. All chis, all rescued, all very different. Mine haven’t done to the furniture what yours have but I’m so impressed with what you’ve done. My worst at the moment is Buster. I’ve come home to find everything removed from the bed and dragged into the living room. He hasn’t been able to remove the fitted bottom yet. None of these weigh over 6 lbs.
I have the throw covers on all the chairs and sofa and find all of them off and piled in the floor. If I pile up the laundry to fold later I might find “treasures” buried in there- cheese, pieces of meat or raw soup bones. Folded clothes I was too lazy to put away I might find knocked off and in the floor.
Stuffed animals get unstuffed by all.
Who needs tv if you have fur buddies???
No entiendo el inglés, lamentablemente solo hablo español….
Pero gracias al “traductor de Google” he podido leer sus palabras y me he reido mucho. Gracias por la felicidad proporcionada. es usted una persona muy divertida y me he identificado. Gracias de nuevo!
You are too funny!? Love your post and furry children. I have seven of my own. Two dogs and five cats. I could go on forever about their unintended destruction but you’ve already written that book. Your chairs are gorgeous! Bravo! Enjoy them while you can!?
I love this so much. And your babies are beautiful!! I have 4 furbabies myself.
Hey! They are you’re furry kids. So you do for them what you would do for your human kids. They destroy you fix. If you don’t want to fix you buy. lol
I’am glad I found your blog I also have fur babies who love to demolish house. All were adopted for companionship and keep me sane. Never a dull moment with all of them. Always diy something they tried to destroy. I will try your method for my chairs and see how good it stays on. Thanks for posting a pet repair that just might work.