The Chair

Several of you have recently heard me talking about a chair that I have been refinishing, so I decided that I've made a fair enough amount of progress to finally post some pictures!

The Story: This fall, I was going for a walk around town and found this huge chair by a dumpster. It caught my eye because it reminds me of some of the furniture up at church camp. I went back awhile later with a friend of the family to check it out again for structure issues or any damage that I didn't see before. Looked like a solid chair to me! So we loaded it into the truck and took it to a friend's woodshop.

Here's the first look:

Notice the scratched up arms and missing bottom section.

And here's a sideview to see the details:

Lighter tone in natural sunlight

 As you can see, it's an older, very solid chair...and I think it's perfect. :) It is a pine wood chair, and whoever originally made the chair took a lot of time choosing which piece of lumber would go where. You can tell because the most beautiful grain is placed in spots where they will be most seen. The chair is also a rocking chair!
So I've completed the process of stripping the stain. Here's a pic:


Arms were sanded...starting to see what it really looks like under there!

 Next, the sanding process...It's been interesting! Here are a few of the tools I've used for sanding and detail work:


This one has sanding strips all around it. It takes off like a race car, so it's a good shoulder workout!

And another one:

I named this the Dreaded Dremel...Scared me at first, because it can rip up the wood very quickly if you're not careful!

Here is the area where the Dremel was put to use:


Front Detail work. Top section "Dremel'd". Bottom section still has stain and such in it.

I decided to smooth out the edges a bit more on the front panel. Here's the finished project:


After using the Dreaded Dremel, I used the rotating sander, then hand sanded to finish out the edges.

 This is Bella...she keeps me company!

To help out, our good friend Paul helped cut a board to fit for the seat. Here's that plus almost everything sanded. (I still have nooks and crannies to sand, but this is the chair down to it's natural look.)

What do you think? I'm now trying to decide whether to put a clear coat on it, or to add any kind of stain. I love the grain so I might try to maintain the way it currently looks. Still a few more nooks and crannies to sand, then begins making of chair cushions and so on....

More to come on this...