BLUE AND WHITE IKAT TRANSFORMS A THRIFT STORE TREASURE

I have a great friend who works at our local ReStore. I had asked her to keep her eye out for a smallish swivel rocker. When she sent me a text with a photo of this chair, I honestly dismissed it as "too ugly, even for me," but when I popped in a few days later to search for something else, the chair was still there and I gave it a chance.

It felt super solid, and passed the sit and sniff tests with flying colors. A quick internet search told me that W&J Sloane was a "furniture and rug store in New York City that catered to the wealthy." This piece was built in 1970 in North Carolina for W&J Sloane (I found the original tag inside) by a subsidiary of Hickory Furniture that built pieces for retailers. 

My point is, this chair cost $20. It needed a little love, but really only a little, to end up with a top quality, one of a kind piece of furniture for less than it would cost to buy a particle board and cheap foam chair from Homegoods or Wayfair. 

The arm pads were a little deflated so I sliced them open and added some additional cotton batting. 

The owner chose a china blue and white ikat- Kandhar by Robert Allen for the slipcover. It's from Fabric.com and was about $14/yard. The huge repeat ate up every bit of 10 yards, and I wish there had been one more.  

Here it is now...

This is going in an open concept townhouse where the back will be highly visible so this view was as important as the front. 

Here are a few "comparables" I found from a pinterest search. Granted, they are all upholstered and this one is a slipcover, but you have to look pretty close to tell.