Office Chair Refinished

I actually finished a project. Unfortunately, it was the office chair and not the dining room crown molding. Still, I think the chair turned out pretty good. Here are the before and after pictures.

Before

After

Before

After
I used the following process to refinish it. I decided not to use an initial dye on the wood since I liked the dark orangish color it already was. I started by cleaning it up with "furniture restorer", followed by 2 coats of shellac. I just use Zinsser Amber Shellac and mix it with an equal amount of denatured alcohol. The 50/50 mix keeps the coats thin. I then used a gel stain as a glaze. This time I used Old Masters brand dark walnut. Basically, I just paint it on, wait a few minutes, and then wipe off all the excess with t-shirt material rags. I follow that up with another coat of shellac. Lastly, I applied dark brown Briwax and buffed it with a t-shirt type rag. Obviously, I am no expert on mission style finishes, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Mission Finish Testing and Random Chair Purchase

Since I am assuming that the woodwork will be ready to finish at some point in the distant future, I have been testing different mission finishes in an attempt to find one that is close to the original. So far, I have been using the following basic formula: Transtint dye, followed by two coats of amber shellac, followed by a gel stain glaze, another coat of shellac, and finally a coat of dark brown wax. I am testing 4 different dye colors, and 2 different glaze colors, giving me 8 finished samples. The picture below shows my first 4. The dyes are (from left to right) dark mission brown, golden brown, brown mahogany, and medium brown. I used a dark mahogany gel stain as the glaze on all 4 of these. My other gel stain option is a dark walnut, which I will use on the next 4.

My wife has also been looking for a desk chair, so I convinced her to let me find an antique quartersawn oak one so I could practice my finishing skills. Being incredibly cheap, I bought the swivel chair pictured below on Craigslist. It needs a little rehab as you can see, but I think it will look great when all is said and done.

I really don't know much about the history of this chair, other than the label that says "Sperry Office Furniture, St Paul" on the back of the seat. Has anyone heard of, or know anything about this company? Please comment if you have.

Resorting to Chemicals

I think I have removed about as much paint from the crown molding as I can with the Silent Paint Remover.
I really wish they made a smaller version that I could fit into corners. I am now resorting to chemicals. Last time I used a less toxic chemical stripper I tried Ready Strip. Unfortunately, I wasn't thrilled with it, so this time I am giving Soy Gel a shot. I am starting with a less toxic stripper since the room has pretty much no ventilation right now. I am starting in one corner just to see how it does. If it fails, I may just put it off until spring and resort to Zip Strip. Once I get most of the paint off, I am going to go back through with "furniture restorer" (thanks to Shane for his suggestion in an earlier post). One thing that makes stripping the woodwork easier is that it all seems to have been originally finished in Shellac, which is really easy to remove. I will be refinishing it in shellac if I ever make it to that point.

In the meantime, I have been messing with something that has bugged me since we moved in, the gouges in the floor in the doorway to one of our bedrooms. My theory is that the whole house was carpeted at some point and that it wasn't removed all at once. As a result, the floor was sanded and refinished at different times. The other option is that someone really half-assed it. Regardless, I started sanding it to see if I could just get it to be less obvious. In the end, the stain proved tough to match (I probably should have cleaned up the sanding dust around it before taking the picture as well). I think the issue was that the floors are just the natural oak and the surface finish has darkened over time. My best guess is that it is polyurethane of some sort. It's not perfect, but at least it isn't an obvious gouge any more.

Generous definition of progress

The popcorn ceiling in the dining room is officially no more. Unfortunately, the paint on the crown molding is another story. The Silent Paint Remover and scraper is working nicely on the flat section, but pretty poorly everywhere else. The biggest problem is that I can't focus the Silent Paint Remover on small enough areas. You can see the "progress" I have made so far. At this point, I am going to get as much as I can and then use some sort of chemical stripper to clean up the rest. The good news is that the wood underneath is in excellent shape and I am guessing is also the original finish. It is quite a bit darker than the woodwork that isn't painted. My goal is to refinish all the woodwork eventually.

Belated Preparation for Winter

We are lucky enough that our house has all of its original windows, and most of the original wavy glass still intact. They were a big part of why we bought the house in the first place.

Unfortunately, we are not lucky enough to have the original wood storms, with the exception of the basement ones. After we moved in and I had a chance to really look at these, it became painfully obvious how bad of shape they were in. The glazing had deteriorated so much on one that a pane of glass had fallen out and was slimply set on the ground and leaned against the window.

My goal was to repair and reglaze all of them before winter. I figured I would have them done in about a week. Unfortunately, it seems to be taking about 10 times longer than that. The process of removing the old glazing, getting the glass out, repairing the rot, and prepping the window for new glazing is taking a lot longer than anticipated. The pictures show the progress thus far. Given that these are only basement storms, I am probably being way to much of a perfectionist about this.

One of the pathetic 2 that have been reglazed and are actually ready for paint.

Rebuilding missing and rotted pieces with WoodEpox.

By the way, the floor under the windows is the alleged asbestos flooring in our basement. It is a lovely combination of dirty green and equally dirty tan. For some reason though, I still kind of like it.

Fun with refinishing

I have decided it is time to stop putting off working on the woodwork in the dining room. I started picking at the popcorn texture on the crown molding and was pleased that it did come off with hot water alone. Unfortunately, removing the popcorn texture just revealed about 4 layers of paint beneath it. The only good news is that I think the oak beneath that still has the original finish. I can't say the same for the rest of the woodwork in the dining and living rooms. It is all quartersawn oak as far as I can tell, but it was refinished in this weird scummy glaze who knows how long ago. At first I really couldn't tell if it was original or not since it was such a thorough refinishing job. Eventually I found a spot they missed though, the underside of the built in just above the mirror. You can see it was never an especially dark stain, which we saw in nearly all of the houses we toured when we moved to Minneapolis. My intention is simply to remove the scum and get the finish as close to original as possible. Any tips on how to gently remove this glaze without damaging what is underneath would be greatly appreciated. I was planning on attacking it with the silent paint remover, but I don't know if that will be too harsh.

Finally done

The linen closet project took much longer than anticipated. I think I set a personal record for swearing on this one. Despite the frustration, I think it turned out well. The stain is original, touched up with a little bit of Watco Danish Oil in black walnut and finished with amber shellac. I am guessing that the wood itself is birch based on the grain pattern. In case anyone is wondering why the doors are stained but the trim is white, it turns out that was how it was originally. I started stripping the trim, only to realize there was just a coat of primer and many layers of white paint. Given my experience with the upstairs medicine cabinet, I decided that if it was originally white, than white it is. Here are the after pictures. Unfortunately, my camera was having some focusing issues.

My next project promises to be the project from hell. During the great popcorn ceiling craze in Minnesota, someone decided it was a great idea to popcorn over the crown molding in the dining room. We have matching (unpopcorned) molding in the living room, which is quartersawn oak. Also, we will be painting the room something other than the teal green shown in the picture.