33 and a Third

Before and After

I’ve been slowly refinishing my dining room set. Really slowly. My parents bought it from a neighbour ages ago for $50. On the back of one of the chairs, someone wrote “May 28, 1943″ - so I guess it’s 60 years old!

My brother used the dining table and chairs while the kids were little, then started using the chairs for workshop duties and painting. I got the hutch when Reid and I moved into our condo, which fit perfectly in the dining room. Even then, it was somewhat sorry looking. I took the table and chairs from my brother and stored them in the locker. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize there was a water leakage problem, and the table was damaged (the veneer started coming off) and I think a few mice nibbled on the chair pads.

Before Ronnie was born, I decided to take a furniture refinishing course. I brought in one of the chairs. One of the women in the class with me laughed and said… “Don’t let the instructor near it with the rubber mallet!” But I did. Next thing I knew, my chair was in pieces. He was quite right — the chair was wobbly and needed to be re-glued. So I stripped it, re-glued it, refinished it and then did it to a second chair. These two chairs have been safely stowed since then. I didn’t put them into use.

I had the table repaired by a professional — it was beyond me. It turned out ok, but you can still see the damaged parts. I refinished the hutch myself in early fall. Inspired by the hutch, I finally tackled chair number 3 - about 10 years after the other 2 chairs! You can see the before picture at the top of this log. I took it all apart and brought it with me to Thorold when I went to visit my parents. They helped me strip it.

Actually, stripping it with my parents was a lot of fun. My mother was anxious to help. But she only wanted to strip the big pieces, refused to do the finicky harder parts and would not do the final touch ups. She’s funny - I saw the child in her then. And my dad was amazing. I had spent a good half hour repeatedly applying stripper and sanding with steel wool, pressing as hard as I could. I applied stripper for him and showed him how to sand. I noticed he was using his two fingers (index and middle fingers), and I suggested he use the side of his hand where his thumb was. He looked at me and said - “Oh, that’s ok”. A few moments later, he showed it to me and said — “How’s that?”. Whew. What he did in a few minutes with two fingers, took me half an hour of hard scrubbing. (Although a small man, he was always as strong as an ox. And now that he’s older and complains of being weak, he’s still stronger than Reid and I put together. His pinky finger is as thick as my thumb!)

After bringing the chair back home to Toronto, I glued it back together. I recovered the seats with a fabric that matched the original colour (and recovered the other 2 chairs as well). Well - three out of four chairs are all done and we’re actually using them in the dining room! I wonder if it’ll take another 10 years before I get to the very last chair!