When I'm not composing (or rather, when I'm taking breaks from composing), I like to work on furniture (in case you couldn't tell from the desk-building post). I've specifically been a fan of mission-style furniture, which is fortunate since OU apparently is as well. Not that I choose colleges based on their furniture choices or anything…
But because OU has a multitude of mission-style furnishings, sometimes these things break, or get worn out, or the university just decides to get rid of them, and they sell them at the University Surplus store, which is only open to the public one day a week (and has a glorious selection of everything). And because I have jobs that require me to sit on the internet all day, (heh. “requires”) I was excited when I found that they had at least one mission-style dining chair for sale. Of course, the university has these things everywhere, and when I bought my first two, they had maybe 20-30 for sale. Luckily they hadn't sold the one they had by the time Steven and I showed up, and shortly thereafter I left, 5 dollars poorer, and 1 chair richer.
So the chair arrives back at my apartment, and I'm finally able to sum it up. It's a little shaky, it's scratched, the wood color is off, and the choice in fabric is…special. So of course, I started the refinishing process by taking it apart.
All those spots? That's the dust that was in my living room from disassembling this thing.
Of course, after taking the entire thing apart, sanding off the old finish, I had to put it back together. I've omitted some steps, but here it is, reassembled.
While waiting for the glue to dry, I found the fabric that matches my existing chairs (it lives in one of the drawers in the spare bathroom for some unknown reason).
And so, after several days of matching stains and getting the runs out of the varnish, I ended up with this:
Overall, after $5 for the chair, another $5 for stain and a dropcloth, $20 for adjustable clamps (which I'll use frequently), and $0 for the leftover fabric, varnish, and brushes, I ended up with a high-quality chair that has a story.
Now if I could only find another one…
