My new project!

Well hello there, long time no post, sorry about that.

I've been pretty busy with my new project which is giving old chairs a new lease on life and hopefully making them look awesome and selling them on eBay  to friends or through here. So this is what I've been up to lately. 


I found a couple of old captains chairs which were sitting on the side of the road, someone had thrown them out for the roadside dumping. Grabbed one as I was on my way to work, and came back after the end of my shift to grab the second one.

This is what they looked like when I first got them ... Pretty worse for wear and extremely dirty!

The first chair after I'd picked it up (my photo)

So with a bit of a wash, sand papering all the old varnish off and grouting all the dents that it had in it. It's come up looking like the photos below. One of the legs was a bit split, so I filled the split and straightened it out again and its come up good as new. 

After a sand, and grouting (my photo)

My plan is to paint them in a satin black enamel which I've purchased from bunnings for about $8. I have undercoated them with white undercoat, so the enamel doesn't soak into the wood. I've put a first coat on one of them but haven't taken a photo of it as you can still see the undercoat in some areas, so it needs another couple of coats to make it look amazing. Which it does already in a chic shabby way but i want it look even better. 

The other part of my plan is to make chair pads so it makes it a bit more comfortable to sit on instead of sitting just on the wood. I went to Gala Upholstery in Taren Point and met Ron, a man full of information which he is willing to share with people like myself who are just starting out with restoring old chairs. He showed me many fabrics and answered all my questions. I have settled on this really lovely fabric from Warwick fabrics. It cost about $56 a metre and I got 1.4m. Well worth it for the quality I think. I originally went to spotlight and couldn't really find anything that I liked so went to the professionals and I'm glad I did as Ron was fantastic!

The info tag attached to the fabric with all the details (my photo)

I went for a nice brown natural fabric which is beautifully soft to touch.
Just waiting to get into Clarkes Rubber when I can so I can purchase the foam to make the pads.
Have obtained zips from Lincraft. So are very nearly good to go. (my photo)

And my other project that I've been working on is in the photo below. Sorry not the best photo as the sun is in the back ground but its a beautiful old chair which is in need of some new upholstery fabric. So I've sanded it back to the natural wood as it was painted in a cream colour. I picked it up off eBay for $55 bucks and it had a friend so grabbed the other while I was at the person's house for another $50 bucks. Saved her having to try and sell it.

The original chair (my photo)

And have started to remove the fabric and foam so I can replace it with new fabric and foam. See below for the sanded version. The green material is the old foam under the fabric. Boy do my hands hurt at the moment for removing the staples holding the tacks in. Hard work I an tell you. 

In progress of stripping back completely (my photo)

So that has been what has been keeping me occupied at the moment. I'll post more photos when they are finished so you can see my creations. I'm painting the second type of chair with the black enamel as well and need some ideas as to what colour to upholster the fabric in. What's modern and classy these days?