Mid-Century Chair Stripped / New Needlepoint Seat

Mid-Century Chair
w/Needlepoint After

 

Mid-century chair
before refinishing

It’s amazing how styles from the past tend to pop up fifty or sixty years later, as if the idea is brand new. This mid-century modern chair is classical 1960’s style, wide, low back and clean lines which were commonly seen in living rooms across America which mimicked the Scandinavian style. I loved the lines of this chair. 

This chair was extremely well made, quite strong and needed no tightening or repairs. The back had a few missing veneer pieces, which were easily filled in and stained so that it was hardly visible. 

I made the choice to completely strip this chair instead of touch-up because I felt that this is what it needed. In order to be true to the piece, you must determine what’s the best course of action to make it look the best it can. In this case, I stripped off the old finish, luckily wasn’t too difficult to remove as old stain mostly is. It came off easily and once that was done, I thoroughly sanded it, removing the excess stain and stripped. I cleaned it with lacquer thinner and sanded it smooth. 

I was very happy with the way the chair turned out. The light cherry stain was definitely the perfect color to offset the dark color of the needlepoint. A nice foam padding finished off the seat so that the chair is as comfortable as it is pretty.

I chose cherry stain to keep the color light which I felt complimented the lovely needlepoint seat that my customer made just for this seat. This was the third seat such as this that I had made for this same customer. The other two were benches. She is making a needlepoint seat for each of her grandchildren. She makes the needlepoint then finds the chair or bench which is the right size for the needlepoint. So far she’s been pretty lucky! 

To see one the previous needlepoint benches I made for this customer, check out the link below. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of the other one, but it had a blue background with a black bench.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/5936537173467203420/24816612440806533 

Mid Century Modern Dressers

Tall Dresser After

Tall Dresser Before

Sometimes I have no words for the furniture that comes to us. This is one of those times. This was a Kroehler dresser set, a classic mid-century modern set that at its creation was probably very beautiful. Somewhere along the line the original hardware was lost (who knows) and replaced with completely different (not matching) hardware in a different finish. 

The original drawer pulls were the ones on the bottom two drawers, The center drawers had “scoopy” handles which were not at all correct for this period and the top large drawer had four knobs, also not matching. To say the least, this dresser had a bunch of mismatched pulls that simply didn’t work.

Long Dresser After

Long Dresser Before

Our customer wanted these dressers refinished and stained, however we realized that once we started stripping it wasn’t stained originally, but painted with a glaze treatment. Plus, there were broken veneered corners that wouldn’t have looked good if filled in and stained, so we suggested paint, which turned out to be the best option for these pieces. 

As much as we prefer exposing the beautiful wood hidden beneath layers of paint, sometimes it’s not possible because when we get painted pieces, it’s usually for a reason. But occasionally we get painted pieces that have gorgeous wood beneath and it takes on a completely different look once stripped and stained.

For these dressers, once the holes created by all the handles were filled in, sanded and smoothed out, painting covered them and they once again had a classic, clean line look common to the mid-century modern furniture people gravitate to. It had gotten an upgrade that worked great for these pieces. We also worked on two nightstands (not pictured) that were a part of this set but we didn’t get the “after” pictures of them. Then our customers decided to get a headboard painted to match the rest of the furniture so now they have a complete set that all matches. This one turned out great!

Mid-Century Stendig Chairs Refinished and Re-Caned

Stendig Chair Before

Stendig Chair After

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these photos are worth many thousands if time were a contributing factor. These are designer “Stendig” chair, made in Czechoslovakia, mid-century modern made with Beechwood, with several unique features; curved arm rests, a compound-curved back, matching curved seats and overall difficult to work on design. The customer wanted them refinished, with new caning to replace the broken cane areas (which are not easy to detect in the photo).

As of this writing, I can truthfully say that these chairs have been the most difficult caning project to date. Jim took them apart and worked on the refinishing. Once that was done, I started the tedious process of caning each of the eight sections (two per chair) of these unique mid-century pieces.

Photo 1 - Channels that
hide back of cane

Photo 2
Top front of chair before
cane removal

Each chair’s back had a channel that covered up the caning that is normally visible on caned chairs. Since these chairs’ original cane had been “hidden" beneath the channels, they had to be removed first before I could remove the cane from the holes and install the new caning. This proved to be an unexpected twist in the process because I simply had no idea how to accomplish this and no point of reference online or anywhere else, even in a caning forum.

I had done many caned chairs prior to these, but never had I expected the challenge this style of chair would present, not only in the refinishing, which required them to be taken apart, but removing the channels (see photo 1) that covered up the caning on the back of the chair and were glued in place. How do I remove them to access the caning without damaging the chair?? I researched it, but could find no information of how to achieve the removal of these channels, which meant there was only one solution. I had to figure it out myself, so that’s exactly what I did. I snipped off the sheets of caning from all backs, (see photo 2) leaving only the front edging (see photo 3) before I devised a way to remove the channel. For the seats, this was much easier because there was no channel to cover them, so I was able to remove the cane in its entirety, as I had done with many previous cane chairs in the past.

I realized that since the channels were glued in place, I would have to find a way to dissolve the glue so I could gently pry them apart from the chair’s curved border in order to remove it, which would expose the original cane beneath. But how to do that...carefully. Well, a bit if creative thinking and the right tools solved the problem. I figured if I could get to the inside of the holes and gently tap them, I could loosen the channel enough to remove it. The only problem was, since the channel was glued, this would likely break the channel as well as the chair in that area, so there had to be an additional step.

Photo 3
Top  of chair border
only remaining

Photo 4
Using eyedropper filled with
lacquer thinner to loosen
glue on front side of channel

After I had cut the body of the cane off the chair, the only thing left was the edge that filled the holes (which were not visible due to the channel). I carefully snipped them all away and removed as much cane from each hole as I could, using an awl to poke away at the hole to create an opening. This was a long and tedious process in itself. Once all the holes were exposed, I used an eyedropper (see photo 4) and filled it with lacquer thinner, allowing the liquid to fill each hole, which would eventually flow to the underside of the hole and into the glue that held the channel in place.

Once I was assured that I had enough lacquer thinner in each hole, I gently tapped each hole with another, duller awl (see photo 5) so as not to damage the exterior of the curve or the channel. After a lot of dropping, tapping and more lacquer thinner, eventually the channel loosened enough for me to remove it, exposing the caning beneath (see photo 6). Then, finally, I used a drill to clean out the remaining bits of old cane so that the holes would be free of debris to better accept the new cane (see photo 7).

         

Photo 5
Using a dull awl to gently
pound thru holes
that pried channel away

 

Photo 6
Channel removed, exposing
original cane tie-off
on back top of chair

Photo 7
Drilling holes to clean out old cane

Photo 9 First Weave

\

Photo 8
Steps 1-3 tied together

The first one was the “learning” chair, where I used thread to tie the loose strands together to keep them in a somewhat orderly alignment so that when I started weaving, I could work with the strands easily, though the process was anything but easy (see photo 8). The first horizontal weave was very time-consuming, taking one to two days. That was also the hardest part because I had to make sure the chair was tightening exactly enough for the diagonal weaves to look good (see photo 9).

I soon learned that it was impossible to keep the rows straight in a curved chair back, so I “went with the flow” and allowed the chair to evolve as it was woven, and indeed, it wasn’t half bad. Each chair back that followed I go a little bit more confident and found a few more tricks to keep the vertical and horizontal rows aligned so that they were easier to work with. This also made the 5th and 6th steps, the diagonal weaves, flow much better. Photo 10 shows the last diagonal weave going to the upper left corner. The last and final step was binding the cane with a border binding cane that finishes off the top. Then the tie-off finishes the bottom. Many steps with a lot of work and time involved in these chairs, so I enlisted my granddaughter’s help by teaching her a new skill which she learned very quickly.

Photo 10 Last Diagonal Weave

My helper

My cat, Chelsea keeps
me company

Chairs in customer’s home

Mid-Century Modern Nightstands

Pair of Mid-Century Nightstands Before

Nightstand After Refinishing

Twin nightstands designed in the mid-century modern style have clean lines and classic styling, but needed freshening up and refinishing. It was common in the 1950's to apply a coat of glaze over stain for an extra layer in addition to modifying the overall appearance of the wood. The downside of this procedure was that it is extremely difficult to remove the additional top layer of glaze as well as the polyurethane and finally, the stain that lies beneath it all.

These nightstands had layer upon layer of glaze which took a while to remove. Unfortunately, it was difficult to tell exactly when we had stripped the last of the glaze until we began staining. A good indication that you haven't quite removed all the previous finishes is when the wood repels the stain. When that happens, you can tell, trust me. The areas surrounding the spots where the finish hasn't been completely stripped will accept the stain, leaving the rest blotchy. It's frustrating because once you spend hours and hours stripping and sanding and sanding more, you expect that your hard work paid off and you can now enjoy the "fun" part of the process, staining.

The extra layer of glaze is hard to detect as it is practically invisible. Only when stain is applied does it become painfully obvious that the piece still requires a lot more stripping, sanding, and ultimately, labor. There's  no way to avoid it, so you may as well accept it. Stripping is hard, tedious work, but it must be done. The end result was a pair of lovely, usable nightstands that will indeed withstand the test of time for another fifty plus years...or more.