I picked up a new chair on a recent visit to my favorite furniture store.
ok. so it was only thirteen bacon double cheeseburgers. Twelve if you include tax. Not exactly a huge investment…
and it wasn’t exactly from a furniture store, per se. I got it at Goodwill. And because I am paranoid about just taking the tag but leaving the piece at the back of the thrift store for all the other deal-hunters who would cut the legs off from underneath you to get ahead, I must admit that I dragged this sucker around behind me while I shopped. It actually came in handy when my 8 month pregnant legs needed a bit of a rest in the housewares department.
But anyhoo. I brought the chair home and decided that the perfect spot would be at the top of the stairs right outside the still-in-progress nursery.
I love the black lionback chair (also a Goodwill purchase years ago) but the style really doesn’t match the rest of our house. Plus, I figure that I can sell it on Craigslist for twice what I paid…which was only $10…or I can paint it bright turqouise for a one-day Domino style office. Either way, the formal inspired chair wasn’t fitting in with the rest of our laidback home and the new chair with it’s arch details and bamboo material was more relaxed and less stuffy.
But this chair, like all child-stars, had some issues.
First – the finish needed a redo. The polyed coat on the arms had worn down and had exposed a different color wood than underneath the rest of the chair.
Secondly – the legs looked like they had been chewed by a small rodent.
Lastly – the seat had seen better days. It had been gouged worse than a whitehead at the fingertips of my Dominican facialist.
To start the makeover, I flipped the chair over and examined how to remove the seat. All I needed to do was unscrew the four screws holding the seat down.
This is when I discovered the tag. I love it when I find tags on furniture. It’s like a glimpse into the piece’s past life. And the past life on this chair was in the commercial world. Shelby Williams is a company that makes chairs for the hospitality or foodservice industries. So the vinyl chair fabric and the tag led me to believe that this chair probably was in some dining area at a casual motel.
Let’s get back to makeover…
After I removed the chair seat,
I did a quick wipe down of the entire piece.
And then I used a fine grit sandpaper to remove the rest of the polyuerathane and smooth out some of those marks from the imaginary rodent.
Then I picked out a wood stain that was close to the existing warm finish.
Over the course of two nights I applied three to four thin coats of the stain allowing dry time in between. The finished product was definitely a more even finish.
I especially liked the areas that had the deeper scratches. I even applied the stain to the bits of leather that were binding the legs together. Looks pretty good huh?
Then I used Minwax Spray Polyureathane on the entire piece. And yes, preggo-police, I wore a mask and did it in a well ventilated area. All I had to do was apply two thin coats and let dry for an entire week.
There she is:
I am super happy with the end result. The finish is exactly the dark warm look that I wanted. And the total cost so far was $17 (the chair, the stain & the foam brush…I already had the spray poly). But there is more to tackle…specifically, that seat needs a new piece of upholstery to look brand-spankin’-new (part 2). So keep on the lookout for that later 🙂
So what do you guys think? Do you agree that the black chair is just a little too formal? Or maybe you just redid a chair and want to link up? Please please share in the comments if you have tackled a chair makeover recentl…I love seeing the transformations almost as much as I love Tums. It’s a pregnancy thing.