Making an Old Thing New

Here's a little project I did last month that I have yet to share.

A long time ago, when my old church built a new building, they bought all new chairs and gave away the old ones for free. We happen to have a ton of those sitting around my house, so after browsing Pinterest for a while, I got inspired and decided I would reupholster one of them for fun.

This is what I started with.

Pretty ugly and uncomfortable, right?

If you ever choose to do a project similar to this, it will vary based on the style and build of the chair, so a step by step guide of what I did to reassemble wouldn't be very useful. Instead I'll give you the cliff notes to give you a little to go off of. The first thing I did was take the chair apart. It wasn't a very difficult thing to do because there were only eight screws on the entire chair. With the cushions off, I took the frame outside and used some semigloss white spray paint to cover the frame. You will see I didn't really invest a whole lot in the spray paint as it's already chipped in the final picture. While that was drying, I went inside and pried the staples out of the cushions and platforms of the chair one by one so that all the original upholstery was removed. This is what I did on the first day.

A couple of days later I made a trip to WalMart to purchase the fabric, new cushioning, and a staple gun in order to finish the project. I kept all of the original parts to the chair such as the frame, seat, and backing. Then I reassembled the chair, with much more cushioning and the new upholstery, in the opposite fashion that I took the chair apart. This is the final result:

Yeah... see where the paint is already chipping? The lesson is, don't buy cheap spray paint for furniture you want to keep around!

Regardless, I'm pretty proud of the result, considering it was my first project ever of that nature. Also it matches my room a lot better, which is a plus!

I'll leave you with a side by side comparison, just to get a good feel for the difference between the two.

Happy crafting!

Spinach Basil Garlic Pasta with Grilled Chicken - YUM!

I don't know about you, but one of the most frustrating things for a commuting college student is lunch. You don't have a meal plan(and don't want one) so eating on campus isn't really much of an option. You're not rich and you're trying to be healthier, so going out to eat every day for lunch is taboo. It's a frustrating experience on a daily basis.

Today, while grocery shopping after class, I was trying to find things that wouldn't be high in sodium or calories but keep me full. After wandering around getting snackish type things for roughly 20 minutes, I found these grilled chicken strips in the refrigerated section from Tyson. You heat them up for roughly 90 seconds and they are warm and ready to go, for whatever you want to use them for. It comes in a 6 ounce package and 3 ounces is a serving of 100 calories. Instantly I thought about these delicious pasta nests I had back in the pantry, but I'm sure you can use them for salad, chicken fajitas(I may do that with the other half of my chicken), stir frys, and probably anything you may want grilled chicken it. This is a DREAM for someone who loves chicken as much as me.

Anyways, so of course I bought some and brought it home to make with these pasta nests. The pasta is Spinach Basil Garlic Pasta, angel hair to be specific, and comes in these cute little round nests at 100 calories a piece. I boiled two of these with some garlic and salt in the water, just to bring out the flavor a little bit, while I heated up the chicken(3 ounces, just one serving or half the bag). The noodles only had to cook for five minutes, so in about seven minutes flat I had this delicious mix of pasta and chicken. No sauce, no veggies(although I wanted to add a little bit of green beans & mushrooms), no butters, just noodles and grilled chicken.

So what is the damage health wise?

Spinach Basil Garlic Pasta with Grilled Chicken
Calories - 300
Total Fat - 2.5g
Sat. Fat - .5g
Cholesterol - 50mg
Sodium - 485mg
Carbs - 42g
Fiber - 2g
Sugar - 1g
Protein - 28g

So as you can see, really great on the protein and calories. Another bonus? I'm still stuffed, hours later! I love it when I'm not ravenous and seeking out a snack less than two hours after lunch. Give it a try and let me know what you think! Oh, and if you can come up with some other uses for this Tyson grilled chicken, let me know! I still have half a bag left.