Making The Old New Again – Restoring Old Furniture
The holidays are finally over and we all can relax again. Hope you all had a great time spending it with family and friends. It’s always great spending some good quality time with the ones you love.While spending that time it never fails you come across an old piece of furniture in your parents garage that catches your eye and reminds you of your younger years. It’s still in great shape and you want to take it home but the only problem is it’s just ugly and out of date. There is a solution though, make it new again. It’s not that hard, it just takes a little spare time and very little money, which I like.
We finished our holiday this last weekend at my Father in-laws. He lives on a 160 acre farm around Kisse Mills, Missouri. Great view of the Missouri Hills. It was really warm so we got to spend a little time outside enjoying it. As my wife and I were out in one of the garages nose’n around with her dad, she came across a little swivel stool that she remembered from childhood. She made a comment on how she remembered it and before she could finish dad said “take it”, he said, “all it’s doin out here is collect dust”. She thought it would be a great hair cutting stool for the kids, and the pack rat that I am who was I to say no. The wife’s an ex-beautician but still cuts hair on occasion and it sits just at the right height for her. I wish I had taken a picture of it so you could see how it looked before I got a hold of it…pretty ugly.
One thing I like to do in my spare time is fixing up little things like this. Call it tinkering, but it’s actually rewarding to take an old piece of furniture, like a stool, an old chair or table and make it look like a completely different piece or just make it look new again. Now I don’t go all out, and sew new pieces in and all that but if it’s repairable by a vinyl mend or sanding it down and painting or staining then I’ll do it. I have several little stools in my shop that I’ve done.
This little stool was just asking for some t.l.c. . I’d say it’s at least 40 years old. The vinyl is in really good shape, minus a few little spots along the edge that had been nicked. The color was the old light tan with some sort of funky print. The metal legs were a kinda blush beige stuff…all I know was it was ugly and needed an update.
Looking around the shop I came up with a silver for the legs and I used Sems black vinyl dye for the vinyl seat and back. Now remember I was going for cheap, using what I had at the time. There are times I will go all out on a piece but this one just needed a little update and really I had the stuff just needing to be used.
Older vinyl is nice to work with as long as it’s not to far gone. If the vinyl is cracked through out or if it’s brittle enough to break then it’s usually to far gone. The older vinyls are thicker and mend really nice but one can only do so much magic. If it’s to far gone, recovering is your only option, but with stools it’s pretty easy to wrap a new piece right over the old or replace the stuff altoghther. Done that alot, just heat the vinyl with a heat gun as you go, makes it a little easier to work with.
One little tip when doing older vinyls like this, go darker, like a dark brown or black, it just seems to just hide better. Another thing to keep in mind is to use colors with white in it or even black, but mostly white. True colors like red, yellow, and blue are usually to transparent and you have to use so much dye and it just looks terrible when your done. If you do want a true color you need to paint it white first, this will give you a good base for the true colors, it makes them pop instead of having the under color showing through.
I took the seat and the lean back off. If you can disassemble something do, this will keep you from getting over-spray where you don’t want it. But if you can’t then mask off the vinyl parts first, paint or stain the rest and then do the vinyl, this will insure no dye is removed from masking. If you run into a situation where you need to mask off a freshly painted area, take the tape and lay it sticky side down onto your bluejeans, this will take some of the sticky out of the tape and make it less likely to remove any fresh paint.
I then cleaned the metal parts, scrubbing with my red scotch brite pad and prepping solution, then wiping clean with a terry towel. There was a little rust in a few places so I took a little 400 grit sandpaper and smoothed them out. Now if you have a lot of rust, then a primer is usually needed but in this instance there wasn’t that much and again cheap. Once cleaned, off to spraying I went… light coats first, especially with metallics, your metallics will sparkle better and not look foggy by laying them on light coats at a time plus less chance for runs. I might be doing it cheaply but I don’t want it to look cheap.
There was also a chrome ring around the bottom for a a foot rest, shined up nicely with a little steel wool. Takes the rust and ugly right off.
While I let the metal parts dry I prepped the vinyl for dyeing and repairs. Cleaning the vinyl really good ensures the paint will stick hence lasting longer. All I did was cleaned it really good with my prepping solution and a red scotch brite pad, wiping it clean with a terry towel. I then took the back clamped it in the vise with a towel to cushion it so not to tear up the vinyl, and to steady it for any repairs needed. I noticed along the top edge of the there were a couple of chunks out of the vinyl. Luckly I had a grain pad close to the grain of the vinyl, if not I could have made one but I had one so we were cool. Now all I did was take a little vinly repair compound and laid it right over the exposed foam and metal with my pallet knife, heated it slowly, pushing up the pieces of vinyl laying out, kinda shaping it as I went, layering it up until it was level. Once I was close to being done I shot a layer of dye on it to see where I was at. Close but needed a little more, I’m pretty picky, so I laid a couple of more layers on, paying attention to the edge only, I didn’t want to go over the edge and get into the face of the chair, repairs on the face are a lot harder to hide then on an edge. Once I was happy with my vinyl repair I pulled it out of the vise, sprayed it with Plastic Magic Adhesion Promoter then sprayed it with the Sems black, again light coats at a time, this keeps the runs down and just makes for better adhesion and just a better look when your done.
There is another way to repair these types of vinyl repairs. With thick super glue and a 240 grit sand paper. I know not all of you have access to the stuff I have so I thought I’d throw in this little trick. This trick will only really work on the edges, not recommended for the face or seat areas, it will crack. All you do is squeeze a little glue in the hole and start sanding over it, the glue will dry as you sand and the sandings will act as a filler. Micro bubbles work pretty good too. Micro bubbles is a super glue additive used as a filler, use this stuff for the larger areas. Just keep adding glue and sanding until its smooth and level. Now you can leave it smooth or add a little texture with Sem Texture Coat, then dye. I use this trick only when I don’t think I can do a conventional vinyl mend, usually when I think the heat will make the vinyl swell. Some vinyls will swell when heated, making a small hole bigger! I hate this stuff you start out with a tiny little hole and think you have an easy fix then you put the heat to it and the hole is now about a 1/2" around, urrrggg. Identifying this kind of vinyl is kinda hard, I’ve found the vinyls with a foam backing do this mostly. I think there thinner or something. So on these types I use superglue first to hold the vinyl then do a low heat vinyl repair over the area.
After all was dry I put it back together. This is always fun, things always seem to go back together a lot harder then they were taking apart. Had a time putting the swivel seat back on. They used ball bearings laid into am open track to make the chair swivel smoothly. Kinda funny trying to do this one by myself, holding it upside down with one hand and trying not ot loose the ball bearing while putting the seat back on with the other hand, quite humerous, but with a few choice words I got it.
My little stool project turned out really nice. My wife was amazed and happy, which is always nice. I’m also kinda anxious to show it off to my father in-law.
Making the old new again can be rewarding in many ways and can be done with just extras laying around your shop taking up space. It’s not that hard to restore those old pieces of furniture with a little time and some patients you can have something for another 40 years of memory giving.
Stumble it!
