Spit & Polish

My daughter is soon to be heading back to university again ... this year renting an old house with a bunch of other students.  They were in need of a kitchen table & chairs, so I had been checking on Kijiji for something suitable to turn up ... and it did!  Four chairs and a table for $40.  Unfortunately for me, another roommate came up with a table quicker and they're going to use that, so I'm stuck with the table :[



Sturdy chairs with stained padded seats!

 The place from where we picked them up was rather creepy ... an old farmhouse that had been let fall to ruin from the inside out.  The guy said he'd "recently renovated the kitchen and the chairs just didn't go with it anymore".  Laughable since the kitchen was horrendous, and this guy didn't really look like he cared about interior decorating.  He invited us into the house to collect the chairs ... I was dubious about entering the house at all, and wouldn't have if I was on my own.  We brought out three chairs from some back room, and when I reminded him he had posted four chairs for sale, he said "oh my wife's sitting on the other one in the kitchen".  And so she was, having her last cigarette in her favourite chair.  She kindly let me have the chair, and she was left smoking standing up ... I guess they hadn't yet picked up the set that would go with the newly renovated kitchen!

 

Lovely fake oak finish :)

 

 

Judging by the pile of butts in the ashtray on the kitchen table, and the smell that permeated these chairs, these people smoked like fiends.  I decided to refinish the chairs and paint them all to remove the smell.  Even after two months sitting in the garage, they still smelled strongly of cigarette smoke ... blech!

 

The chairs were in fairly good shape, and my husband the woodworker took them apart and glued them back together to fix any wobbles. So after sanding ...

 

They're made up of a patchwork of different wood, but some of it is oak, so they're quite heavy.  I wondered at first if I could stain them, but when I revealed the different woods and some of it is pressed plywood, this wasn't an option.  I'm going to paint them all white.

 

So stay tuned for the big reveal.  It looks like another sunny day out there this morning, so I've set the day aside to work on these chairs and get them finished.  I have some fabric picked out for the seats as well ... I hope I have enough to do all four of them!  Not really looking forward to ripping off the old fabric and it's all glued down.

 

This is my first refinishing project, and I've really enjoyed working on it.  I can see myself choosing some other bits and pieces of furniture in the house to redo now! 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Wendy