Peacock Chair // My Summer Throne // Thrifting Find of the Week

Oh, how I love peacock chairs!  These ostentatious beauties just envelope you in a warm, whimsical little world reminiscent of a bygone era.

{picture of my chair below these lovelies!}

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When I was a little kid, my friend Loretta had an amazing Barbie house.  It was huge and it was full of wonderful Barbie-sized furniture.  She had all the coolest Barbie clothes and she even had a Ken whose head hadn't fallen off.  But, by far, the coolest thing she had stashed in that Barbie mansion was a pair of perfectly scaled down rattan peacock chairs. Oh, how I wished those chairs were my size!  But alas, they were not.  I figured a peacock chair was something I might have in my distant future if I was a good person and didn't rack up too much bad karma.  Oh, but I was wrong.


The husband and I were at the local Salvation Army about two weeks ago and spotted a darling peacock chair sitting all lonely-like amidst a sea of worn-out, oddly-colored, mid-nineties armchairs.  It had a some hanging bits and was outfitted with Dallas Cowboy's print cotton cushion.  Whaaaat?  I just can't seem to understand the overlap of the Dallas Cowboys and fans of vintage Peacock chairs.  The chair was $15.00.  Fifteen dollars and I walked away.  I told myself we didn't really need it.  We already had a porch swing, how much outdoor seating do two people need anyway?  It was a crazy impulse buy, it would look tacky on our prairie foursquare style front porch.


Oh, how I regretted it later.  I thought about those tiny little Barbie chairs and my heart got a little sad.  Two weeks went by.  I decided it would be nice to hit up the old Sal-val and see if there were any new items in rotation that I simply couldn't live without.  I perused the clothing, housewares, etc before venturing over to the furniture.  My heart skipped a beat - there she was!  Still sitting there, looking like she needed a home - she needed a friend to fix up her droopy back - she needed me!  

my lovely new peacock chair - cowboys cushion and all

and she needs some work.

I'm sure I made a bit of a scene dragging that thing through the store as I finished my shopping, but she was mine, and I wasn't going to chance someone taking her while I finished my rounds.

Now she's snug and safe on our front porch and is ready for some much-needed TLC.

For the cushion, I'm thinking a hand-printed canvas fabric something along the lines of this:

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It would be a structured round cushion with the flat sides and the like.  Maybe one tuft in the middle if my sewing gets crooked.  I'm thinking some bright pom-pom trim used like piping - a little throwback to the 60's when they were all the rage.  The Sombrero Sheet Set from Antro has some charmingly bright tassel trim - maybe tassels instead!

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Or, a lovely crochet cushion like this beauty to the left.  But that would require learning how to crochet and I'm feeling lazy today.

I'll work on it and post some progress pictures soon!


And finally, when it's all finished and I sit on my porch, I'll imagine I'm Norma Talmadge and drink mimosas.

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