Everyone, please find yourself a chair…

If you read our previous post you’ll know that we got these great workshop/drafting chairs for a good price from Amenia Station. They didn’t look in great shape but we sanded them down, filled in the big chips with epoxy putty, stained and varnished them and I have to say that we are rather pleased with the results.

After removing the paint/satin it was obvious that the majority of wood used lacked any luster. It was a hodge podge of different woods, most of them were gray and bland, but a few were really nice. I can see why they were painted. We bought about three different types of stains to test out, including blending colours. In the end we went for “Golden Sunset” from Zar. When I mixed and colored the epoxy to repair the large chip I thought we were going to keep the dark look, hence it’s colour. I could remove the epoxy and redo it but I feel it adds to their story.

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As you can see from the photos there is a quite a variation in colour but all in all I think we’ve made a big improvement and I think they’ll fit in with the house. As a comparison I added a picture of how they used to look. They are comfortable and I hope in the future that some of you readers will be able to plop your posterior down on one and enjoy a nice cup of tea or a cocktail.

Aside, preparation. Sanding down twice, one coat of Minwax Pre-stain, one coat of Zar “Golden Sunset” and two coats of Zar semi-gloss polyurethane (sanding back after first coat). We also re-drilled the holes in the wood slightly as the bolt heads were sitting a little proud. All in all we probably spent about 8 hours working on them.