So, there we were one beautifully warm spring morning enjoying our tea and coffee outside on the south deck when the fabric on Ken's sling chair began to rip apart.
We knew it was just a matter of time. After all, these great rocking sling chairs have been a staple in our deck furniture for almost 10 years. That's a decade of wind, snow, rain, hail and unrelenting SUV rays--brutal SUV rays that eventually win, despite care and quality fabric.
But, okay, to replace them...
Brimming with optimism I turned to the World Wide Web to research the replacement of patio chair slings.
I clicked on one of the first listings and realized after reading a few paragraphs that this company would send me the fabric I selected, but I would have to sew them to fit the correct measurements.
Shuttering, I looked at another listing, deciding I would rather have the company sew my selected fabric to fit the correct measurements.
I figured I was already getting great DO IT YOURSELF points just for replacing the slings myself. No sense sewing them, too.
Next, I selected a nice patio chair sling material and color: Veranda Nutmeg.
Now it was time for measurements. Since these slings are custom made I knew I HAD to get the measurements absolutely correct so I measured three times and even had my darling Ken measure once with me to insure I was reading the tape measure correctly. Total cost of fabric: $95.
Confidently, with measurements in hand and fabric selected I glanced at the Replacement Instructions and was reassured when I read:
To my surprise my replacement slings arrived in just a few weeks and one unseasonally warm April morning I sweetly asked Ken if he would like to help me replace the slings on our chairs, a project that might take about an hour to complete.
Beware of any instructions that use "...30 minutes to an hour" as time needed for completion.
As any Do-It-Yourselfer will tell you, in any DIY project...
However, as we discovered, in this project...
Before heading outside to begin, I re-read the Replacement Instructions and even watched a couple of You Tube instructional videos on replacing patio furniture slings. Armed with information, a flat head screw driver and a box cutter, Ken and I went to the deck to begin.
After we used the box cutter to slice the old slings down the middle, we, with some effort, managed to remove the old slings by carefully sliding the sides out of the channels. The edges are held inside the channels on each side by long plastic rods (splines) that fit inside the fold of the fabric and into the channel.
The first thing we discovered as we pulled the new fabric out of the box is that the long plastic rods were the wrong size. No worries, we said, we'll just use our old (worn-out and brittle) rods instead.
That's when we discovered that our custom-made-to-fit chair slings were too big!! As we held them up to the chair frame it was easy to see that, despite my meticulous measuring, the fabric was, in fact, THREE INCHES TOO WIDE.
Vexed but recalling that there is no return for custom-fit slings, I sighed a very exasperated sigh, set up my sewing machine, gathered the old pieces of chair slings to use as patterns and measured three times. Before cutting, I thought it prudent to return to the first site I visited on my internet search to watch its video on "How to sew your own patio furniture slings."
By now, several hours had passed as I cut and sewed our patio sling fabric...
...but we still had a few hours of daylight left so back to the deck we trudged.
Now it was time to re-install the replacement slings.
Our great deck chairs (that we really liked when we started this project) have separate slings for the back and the seat. (Oh, joy.) So, we decided, now that the fabric was the right size, to do the back sling on the first chair.
To our surprise (but not really by this point) the fabric didn't slide in easily as described in the Replacement Instructions. It didn't SLIDE in any definition of the word. That's when we started pulling the fabric through the channel with needle nosed pliers. After a strenuous success of two inches with only 17 inches to go, we decided to go back to You Tube to see if we could find any other videos on how to install patio chair slings.
Now armed with silicone spray and a chunk of bees wax to smooth the way, we returned to CHANNEL ONE. With effort, though, we managed to yank the fabric all 19 1/2 inches--one side of the back completed!! That's when we realized we couldn't slide down the other side of the back without removing the spreader bars.
Fortunately, it became too dark to continue and thus ended DAY ONE.
DAY TWO dawned with renewed optimism (the watered-down version) and the knowledge that only comes from failing forward.
We decided to go ahead and replace all the slings, which we managed to do over several hours, before replacing the spreader bars on both chairs.
Once we had the slings on both chairs we felt so good knowing that we only had to replace the spreader bars and reattach to the chair base and we would be done!!!
"Almost done"--one of the evil pitfalls to every DIY project.
After a couple of days with wicked wild winds (which had Ken chasing down our newly-attached slings that were trying to blow to Kansas) we returned to our project.
After much straining and trying to come up with different approaches, we realized that we were no match to the force required to replace the spreader bars.
Within a few frustrating minutes we returned to ACE for a heavy-duty spreader tool. Cha-cha-ching!
Even with two spreader bars and both of us pushing as hard as we could we could not get the xX&*$!** spreader bars back into place.
We returned to You Tube and re-watched the instructional videos on how to re-install the spreader bars and tried again. And again. To. No. Avail.
At some point in every DIY project the thought of professional help comes to mind.
We had reached the point where we had done as much as we could. Professional help was needed. I returned to the internet and searched: Help with sling back deck chairs/reupholsters who replace deck chair slings/... and eventually found myself back where I started with patio sling replacement sites.
Desperate, I finally connected with Furniture Medic, and although this company really focuses on wood furniture repair, I must have sounded pathetic enough that Eric agreed to come over after work that day to help us.
With his strength, two (new) spreader tools, and both of us, we managed to RE-INSTALL THE FOUR SPREADER BARS--in just 10 minutes!!!! Woo-hoo!!!
Eric offered to help us re-attach the chairs (complete with perfectly fitting new slings and spreader bars) back to the chair bases, which we gratefully accepted.
50 MINUTES LATER...
Once the chairs were back together--which turned out to be the hardest part requiring THREE people, extra tools, 2 well-worn spreader tools and brute strength--we stood on the deck in semi-darkness wiping the sweat off our faces.
Replacement of slings for two deck chairs:
$235 including fabric, spreader tools and professional help
Ad in the newspaper the next day:
$199 including 4 sling-back chairs and table with umbrella
DIY Project Satisfaction? Priceless?
