The story begins with me needing a photography backdrop for taking head shots. I invested in a nice dark background but I wanted a light colored one as well so I could give my clients the option. I read somewhere to use a canvas paint drop-cloth from Home Depot and given its sweet price point of somewhere around $15-$30 (depending on your size needs) I figured I couldn’t lose. Turns out most people like the dark background so the drop-cloth pretty much stayed in my garage.

Fast forward to the beginning of this summer. I had high hopes to transform my backyard from the mish mash of random furniture to a place we could all really enjoy and love. Part of that plan involved my beloved outdoor swing that I had found on Craiglist a few years ago for $25. When we bought it the cover on it was torn and shredded in a few places but I was able to hide it with some toss pillows. Over the years, weather and lots of use made it so that even toss pillows couldn’t hide the damage.

But I still love it. I rock my babies on it.

Make funny faces with my girl on it.

I had to fix it so I could keep loving it!

I started fishing around the house and garage and when I came across the canvas drop-cloth I figured, why not?

I only needed to recover the back and the awning of the swing (as the chair part had a cushion). So I draped the back first and promptly realized I had no idea how I would actually ‘fix’ it on there.  I finally came up with an idea and SWORE I would never tell how I did it because it was so, um…ghetto style painfully improvised.

But lo and behold, it totally worked and a few months later it’s still holding up. Can you guess?

I used caulking! Yep. I caulked the heck out of it. Knowing that the back of the chair would never really be seen I was okay with the difference in colors of the original next to the new cover. You’ll be proud though because I did actually pin and sew the awning part like a trooper.

I love the results and so far it has held up to the heat and rain (and loading it up with friends and cousins)

I’m so happy that a canvas paint drop-cloth rescued my beloved swing!

Have you used one for a different project? Do share!!