Adventures of on-line thrifting

We moved over a year ago and our new house has a bar counter that transitions from the kitchen to the family room.  We had two bar stools that made the move with us and two from my mom.  The space looks and functions best with three.  So I always had one mismatched stool and one auxiliary.  Which is fine, but I feel like if you are gonna mismatch it should be all or nothing.   I always keep my eye out for an inexpensive swap, but haven't found anything that really talks to me.  The stools I have can be found pretty much anywhere on line and I was just about to cave and get two more.
Here they are on overstock.com




Mine are from Ross and I got them for just under $30.
My parents just bought a house around the corner from us so my mom has been scouring Craigslist for random furniture items.
(Quick back story: The house was a foreclosure so I'm going to document the transition and changes.  Probably could be a blog in itself, but I'll do my best to post the updates and changes.  There will be lots of paint in our future.  And she's wants to go all modern on a budget.  Should be quite the adventure.)
She's always showing me her finds and asking my opinion.  As you can imagine, I've seen tons of styles, new and old during her hunt.  Then she shows me three chrome gems!
Catch is they are an hour and a half away.
But.....
They are also at the beach....
The lady is asking $80 for all three.  Great deal, especially with the prices we've seen at full retail.
It is far, so I need to be 100% sure I want to commit before we make the drive out there.  First, I get the thumbs up from the hubs.  He likes them so that's one box ticked.
And after a couple phone calls about stability, price and location.  It's on.
Mom and I decided to take the kids and make a day of it.
It's Florida in the summer, so thunderstorms are always in the forecast.   A motto I've had since college is that it never rains at the beach.  I'm hoping that motto still holds true,but ya never know.  So, I throw a tarp in the truck with the bungees, load up the kids and off we go.
Indian Rocks Beach is still quaint and cute.  Driving on a beach road really makes you want to live on the beach.  In fact, the bar stool lady said she and her husband decided to sell the big house and get the condo on the beach.  Great trade off in my mind, it was a cute two bedroom RIGHT on the water.  Awesome.  Awesome for me too, because her chrome stools didn't match the new look she was going for. :) win. win.
I hate wheeling and dealing, but I did get the stools for $70.  I feel happy, so now off to the beach.
We find public access and parking, put the stools in the truck cab and schlep everything to the beach.
It was great.  Swimming, sun and sand castles.

 While phone pictures aren't my favorite they are the most convenient, I was very happy to get good shots with both kids (mostly smiling) with my mom and myself.  And...no rain at the beach!  More winning.
A few hours later we wrap it up and schlep the sandy kids back to the truck.
I get the stools secured and covered in the back and we head home.
We traveled through three different counties and hit three different storms.  The heaviest down pour was closest to home.  Thank goodness I had the tarp.

The stools were covered with three different colors, deep purple, mint green and mustard goldish yellow on a velour like cloth.  While it was a nice ode to my home town of Nola and the Hubs thought it was awesome, they were getting recovered.
We have a lot of turquoise accents, so I wanted to stay in that general genre.
I found a few micro fiber fabrics on-line but I headed to the fabric store.  I always had a fall back if I didn't find anything that fit.
I sent some pics to the Hubs to Yay or Nay.

The response was Nay, yay, yay.  So I'm down to two.  Ryder's favorite is obvious.  It's by HGTV home, so it's hip and bold.  In the long run I was afraid I would get sick of the pattern and it was feeling a bit too nautical to me.
So what we ended up with was this...
I think they are feathers, the Hubs thinks leaves either way nature theme.  

It's textured and durable, so it will hold up to the kids.  As you can see it changes in different light and angles, so it won't get old.  I actually love it more now then when I first covered it.  Oh, and it was on clearance at $9/yard which was all I needed.
I've also found that the baby can't (or hasn't figured out how to) climb up them.  While they do get a lot of spin and Ryder loves to use the hydraulic up and down, they don't get moved around like the old wood ones because of their weight and wide base.  Perfect.
In fact, after my mom saw how they get used in the space she has narrowed down her search.

(From overstock, The southern mission and defysupply)
They all spin. :)