A few months ago, my mom called me to let me know she had found a chair on the curb and picked it up for me. I said this before: she is amazing at curb-finds. To my untrained eye, this chair looks identical to the Thonet originals, but since it didn’t have any tags or markings to speak of, I felt okay playing with it.

The chair was not in bad shape, to be sure. But the wood was discolored, stained, scratched and worn (unevenly). I’m pretty certain that the burgundy naugahyde was original to the chair, but it was torn and stained in places, too.

I spent a day on it and I’m thrilled with the results. I removed the seat, removed the naugahyde and recovered it. This is my best attempt at a “during” picture (I’m not great at remembering to take those):

Then I gently sanded down the frame with a medium-grit sandpaper and then with steel wool to smooth everything out. I gave it two or three coats of danish oil and two coats of Howard’s Feed-N-Wax (letting it dry completely in between coats, of course).

Ready for the results?

Here’s the front and back of the seat-back for a side-by-side comparison. Sorry the white balance is so wonky, I took these pictures at different times of day–but the difference is even more striking in person. It’s beautiful.

The legs had lots of spots and marks on them, here’s one before and after for comparison:

Lovely, right?

We already had the black and white fabric on hand (purchased for another project we haven’t gotten around to…) and all the supplies were on hand, too, which made this a pretty painless project. Also, I had a blast doing it because I’m just in love with this chair.

But as much as I love this beautiful, remarkably comfy chair, we have too much furniture. So it needs a new home! If you love it, too, make an offer. :)