The Chair

August 29, 2013

by — Posted in Crafting, Solutions

If you read the previous post, you’re wondering about the chair. Sadly, I failed to take a full view of the “before” but these should give you an idea of the shape this $10 chair was in:

The wood was pretty dried out and cracking. This was one of the major ones and then one across the seat, splitting it in two.

And this is in the middle of fixing the structural problems. I literally took it completely apart, scraping of old wood glue and sanding off years of neglect.

The wood was soft enough that the decorative legs had massive gouges that you cannot see very well here. :(

Using clamps, I filled the crack on the back with wood glue and squeezed it together until the crack was virtually closed.

After filling the cracks with wood glue to ensure no more future cracking, I had to fill all the holes as well.

And, lastly, this entire corner was gone. Just like… chewed off? I don’t know. So, after pondering my options, like a moldable putty that dries like a clay or wood filler, or just leaving it, I decided to fill it slowly with wood filler. After allowing each section to dry, I would put another layer on until I achieved this. It’s really sad I don’t have a before picture of this, because I’m telling you, it was bad. I’m still amazed it came out like this. We’ll see how structurally sound it turns out to be over the long haul.

Lastly, a fresh coat of paint! I chose to fix the deepest issues, but to leave some of the more surface scratches and wear simply because I loved the character of this chair. If it weren’t cracked, I may have left it as it came because it’s such a unique chair with lots of stories to tell. But, it works great as a craft chair and fits perfectly with my newly refinished desk! Yay!