A Fresh Look for an Antique Chair
Jill had this antique chair that had been passed down from her mother. The seat cover is an embroidery that her mother made, so we wanted to keep that but experiment with the chair color.
Materials Used for This Project
Fusion Mineral Paint Champlain
Fusion Furniture Wax Clear
Fusion Furniture Wax Espresso
PH PandaHall Braid Trim
SurfPrep 3”x4” Electric Ray Sander
Krud Kutter
Vinegar
0000 Steel Wool
Preparation
The chair had to be prepped just like any other piece of furniture; clean and sand. But I also had to take off the cushion which meant taking off the braid trim first. I had to pry out all of the upholstery tacks that held on the braid and then all of the cut tacks that actually held on the cushion cover. It seemed like there were hundreds of them. The chair did not look that dirty but the rags say otherwise.
Although I could get most of the old finish off using the SurfPrep, I did have to hand sand the details in the carvings. There was very little to fix on the chair; just a couple of minor dings that weren’t deep. I fixed those by using a little glue mixed with sawdust I saved from sanding the chair.
I decided to reuse the upholstery tacks, so I boiled them in vinegar for a few minutes and when they cooled down, scrubbed them with very fine steel wool. You can see what a difference the vinegar made in the image below.
Now What
Once the chair was sanded down, we weren’t sure exactly what to do with it. I took this picture and used an app called Xylorix PocketWood that I found in the app store in an attempt to identify what kind of wood this chair was made of. It gave plenty of suggestions but the closest one was American Chestnut. If indeed this is made out of American Chestnut, that would probably mean this chair was made in the early 20th century or before as American Chestnut trees were devasted by a blight in the early to mid 20th century. These trees are now on the endangered list in the United States and Canada.
We kind of liked it just sanded down and the lighter color. I experimented with just putting a matte poly topcoat on it but I didn’t like how it looked, so I sanded it off and decided to do a paint wash using Fusion Mineral Champlain (1:1) and then go from there.
First Coat
This is what it looked like after the first coat of the paint wash. This was my first attempt at using a paint wash and I liked how it turned out but felt it was a little light. So I decided to add both a clear and dark wax on top for both protection and to darken it up just a little bit.
The Finished Product
So here is the finished product. A big difference from the original finish. I think the espresso wax gave just the right amount of color to darken it just a little bit and highlight the intricacies in the carvings. I also picked the upholstery braid to bring out the pinkish/red colors in the cover.
