It’s always intensely rewarding to be able to breathe new life into an old piece of furniture that has been discarded by its previous owner. Here is a small project that I undertook this September…
When I was busy building our cabin nearly two years ago, a friend brought a chair along with him one day. He had fallen off of a ladder the previous day while painting a wall and decided that his old chair was a safer option for extending his reach. After looking at this sad chair sitting on our wooden deck for 18 months, I decided to give it a new lease on life this September.
The seating area had a rather interesting “butt biting” crack in it.
The first step was to find new material for the seating area. I had some old tongue-and-groove flooring plank off-cuts lying around which looked as if they would work. After scratching around amongst the various offcuts of wood lying in the yard, I found enough to make a new seat.
The first step needed was to clean the tongues and grooves of a year’s worth of dirt.
The next step was to pour cold glue into the grooves and clamp all the planks together to make a solid base
Once the glue had set, I marked out the new seat using the old one as a kind of rough template.
The shape was then cut out with a jigsaw…
And finally sanded with a sanding disc on a small angle grinder.
After securing the new seat to the frame, the final step in this process was a couple of quick coats of yacht varnish.
I’m quite happy with the results. An old chair has been given a new lease on life using (other than the yacht varnish) reclaimed materials.
It saddens me to see how often we as a species readily discard items that we see as old, damaged or irrepairable. Often all that is needed is a little patience and tlc and new life can be breathed into something that would otherwise end up on a landfill.
It is my hope that this simple little project inspires you to also breathe new life into some old relic that is just waiting for a second chance at life.
