The Desk Chair

Finished and in place!

After the last coat...

First coat of primer in progress, while watching bad summer TV, of course...

Cleaning in the driveway - apparently 70 years of rough use will build up some serious grime!

These are a few pics from the most recent project in the spare room - a chair for the new work table. I am extremely proud of this chair, because it is almost identical to the desk chairs I've been drooling over in Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel for months, but unlike those $400 options, this chair cost me a grand total of $10. I found at the Washington City Mission's Renovation Station (which is much like Habitat for Humanity's ReStores) at home in Pennsylvania. The re-sale store usually only sells construction materials and things like used sinks and electrical parts, but they do have a few odds and ends of furniture that come in, and sometimes its kind of unbelieveable what people leave there. This little chair, which was already in primo condition, was holding a huge stack of drop cloths on the day I found it. I asked if they would sell it, and $10 later I had a vintage (I'm guessing 1940's, only because my grandfather had a very similar one when I was a kid that came from his war-era office) banker's chair. Actually, I shouldn't call it "little" at all - its built like a tank, of solid oak and steel bolts. The whole thing weighs about 25 pounds!

The finish was a little beat up, so I decided to try my hand at refinishing it (I know, I know - all of my curator/antique store friends are gasping in shock right now) and quickly discovered that I am not the type of person who has the patience for refinishing. So, after a few failed starts, I decided to just paint the thing white, which would really look better in the room anyway. It took two coats of Kilz primer (low-fume, oil-based) and two coats of semi-gloss white latex paint (both of which I already had). Ta-da! Now it looks perfect in the spare room, which is just about finished.