Beware the Two Dollar Chair

This past weekend, on the way home from the Coldspring parade, we stopped at a yard sale. There was an old chair sitting out in the yard that I thought would work in the bedroom I am giving a makeover. It is solid wood with an upholstered chair seat. The lady at the sale told me the chair was $2.00 because it was "wobbly". It did seem to be a little shaky, but chairs are generally pretty easy to tighten up. I bought the chair and headed home with visions of a dark gray chair with some of the fabric I used on the lamp shade.

This is the only photo I have of the chair before the carnage began.

When I took the seat off it was obvious that some former owner who did not know how to repair furniture had attempted to fix the wobble with nails and wood glue. Lots of little nails. The sizes varied and they were at every joint, connection, and rung. FYI don't use nails to fix furniture. Screws can tighten furniture joints but nails cannot.
The glue had been literally poured into every joint. FYI more glue is not better with wood glue.
It was obvious that this easy tighten up was going to turn into a total deconstruction and rebuild.
Just look at how happy Hubby looks working on the chair.

 He went from this expression...

to this one pretty quickly.

Hubby asked me several times how much I paid for the chair as he took it apart, nail by nail.

It looks like he is going to have to drill out a few of the dowels then rebuild it. I have a feeling that this project could take a while.
Note to self, turn the wobbly chair over to inspect even if it is $2.00.

Using a Map to Redo a Chair

I believe in eating dessert first so I am going to show you my favorite project of the weekend.  I have had an old chair in my garage at the city house and then in the Garagemahal for years.  A family friend, Homer, who I loved, gave this to me years ago so that I had an old chair to put a potted plant into.  Homer was a crafter like nobody's business.  He turned barrels into tables, had cowboy boot table legs, used tractor seats for bar stools.  I loved going to Homer and Juanita's house.  I miss them both.

I never did get around to cutting a hole in the chair to put a plant into the seat and I am really glad.  I have seen a ton of stuff recently on Pinterest where a map was Mod Podged onto something.  I thought that this would be the perfect project for the chair.  Of course I had to use a Texas map we got at the visitor center for the map and I made sure that Coldspring was prominently displayed.  Here is the project:

The first step was easy.  Remove the worn out seat from the chair.  Screws were in the bottom.  I did it by myself.

The next step started out easy.  Remove the veneer from the seat.  A lot of it was already loose or gone.

 

It got too hard for me at the end so Hubby had to chisel it off.

Next sanded it all then I painted everything with one coat of paint  I used paint left over from the Lovebirds' furniture.  Valspar- Rapids

I painted the chair frame with two coats of paint.

 

I loved the color.

 

Next, I laid the seat on top of the map and moved it around until I had a good location.  I wanted to put all places we have lived on the seat, but no luck.  I could not get Dimmit and Beeville to play nice so they both had to go.  That was it for the day. 

This morning I got up early and got busy.

I cut out the map and then I Mod Podged the map to the seat.  It brought back a lot of memories for me and my Social Planner who was a weekend guest.  Did you guys Mod Podge when you were kids too?  I used a plastic putty knife to smooth it out as I went along.  It was easier than I remembered.  My Social Planner thought I should call this post Crafting with Coffee.

After I  finished the seat.  I decided to rough up the chair.  I took some sand paper and removed paint where it stuck out or where normal wear and tear would occur.

Here she is all put together!  Love it. This is going to make a great craft chair.

 

At the craft corner.