Thursday, October 23, 2008

Finished chairs

Well, I got the chairs done! Recovered, refinished, re-upholstered, whatever makes the most sense. I took the old fabric and foam off and replaced it with new foam, batting, and fabric...oh and piping! As I promised Rebecca, I have step-by-step photos...well, several anyway.

I refinished the chairs with some Minwax Polyshades, which is universally despised and not recommended and doesn't really work the way it should, which is why we still had 7/8 of a can in the garage. Because if you actually put two coats on something, sanding in between, it will all peel off when you sand, or it won't come off, but won't absorb any more color because it's already sealed with the polyurethane. BUT, it worked for this, because I just wanted to make the chairs look a smidge better, they didn't have to look new (they'd look newer than the table then!).

Also, try not to get the Polyshades on your hands if you use it...it's weird stuff. I'm fine, but it really dried out my hands that day and made them all red.

Chairs before:








Seat cushions before...they didn't really look that nasty:








Supplies:








Layered:








Piping:








Finished:








Chairs after:









So not quite step-by-step, but I only have two hands and I needed both of them.

The chairs had way more staples in them than I thought they would...that was actually the hardest part of the job, pulling all those staples out! I managed to jab my hand a couple times with the flat screwdriver...ouch. But I got them all pulled out, got the foam, batting, and fabric cut, and got it all stapled back on. And by the last one, realized that I had been putting the stuff on the wrong side, which is why when I screwed them back onto the chairs, the metal things for the screws on some of them came out. *bangs head on wall....gets out caulk gun and tube of adhesive to glue metal things to chairs* At least one of the chairs is the right way around...and the glue seems to be holding on the others. One of them must have been wrong though to begin with, or I wouldn't have thought that was the way they went. Oh well.

I went contra dancing Tuesday night, and I took a few pictures of the building right before we left...I need to get some more next time, but I didn't have time Tuesday.
It's at the Vintage Theatre, which used to be a church, so it's a neat building.























I didn't get any pictures of the actual dancing because I was...you guessed it, dancing! We're going to a square dance tomorrow night and I think I'll give Dad the camera. He was surprised I didn't take pictures Tuesday...sorry. :( They would have been blurry! :p

I think that's all...oh wait, no, Dad and I were late getting home because of the Democrats! lol Well, not the whole Democratic party, just Biden. He was at Wake today I guess, and after Dad picked me up from work we were at the traffic light trying to pull out onto the main road when a police officer on a motorcycle showed up and started directing traffic...against the lights. We finally figured out that he was just letting the south-bound traffic through (as quickly as possible) but we didn't know why. The officer was really getting mad too, he was standing there forever waving the traffic through, switching arms every once in a while and yelling at the traffic to hurry up!

"Is the president in town or something?" Dad said jokingly.

Well, finally a bunch more police cars, ambulances, and various other vehicles like that came by, and then three buses, one with a discreet "Obama/Biden" bumper sticker taped to the window, and then two more with signs that said "staff" and "press". So that's what was going on! They had to get back to the highway. I don't know how long we sat there though! Sheesh.

3 comments:

Abigail said...

The chairs look great!

Amanda A Gordon said...

Nice job with the chairs!

Ana said...

Your chairs are beautiful. I love the color.