A Tale of Two Chairs

In the fall last year we picked up these two chairs, I posted a sneak peek of the executive chair in a previous post. The green vinyl and wood chair I found on the street corner in DC, this was the first time I grabbed something on the curb (and I still feel a little dirty). It's been stripped down, vinyl is in the trash, and the "mold" was cleaned from the frame. 

The executive chair I picked up on Craigslist for free, Kari denies any culpability when it comes to this chair, she was proud I actually brought home the above chair, but she is distancing herself from this one. Admittedly, it's very rough and there is no guarantee we can restore it, but I thought it would be fun to try. I have torn it down and disassembled the seat mechanism and legs assembly. I still need to strip the leather and batting, but waiting til I have replacement fabric to make templates, which will hopefully make the restoration easier. 

Reviving Vintage Chrome

We haven't finished anything dramatic in the past few months, most of our weekends have been focused on spending time together and less about the myriad of projects in the queue. The past couple of weeks I have been experimenting with reviving a few chrome items we have bought at estate sales. 

We have used Barkeepers Friend on a few projects with amazing success, but when I tried it on these chrome containers it wore down the finish, the grit was too harsh for the thinner chrome finish. I ordered some Meguiar's Ultimate Compound, usually used for buffing your car's finish, assuming it would be less abrasive. The results were amazing, the Meguiar's compound lessened or removed scratches and shined areas that were faded. Once the chrome was buffed and polished, I followed up with Meguiar's Supreme Shine gloss protectant, usually used for creating hi-shine surface on vinyl, rubber, and plastic surfaces it works great on chrome.

These are the finished stacking containers.

I went ahead and buffed the wax and foil paper holder.

The breadbox required more attention, I actually broke out our Black & Decker Car Polisher to buff out the finish. Unfortunately I'm horrible about taking "before" pictures.

Barkeepers Friend worked miracles on the legs to a metal kitchen cart we bought recently, and I remembered to take "before" and "after" pictures. Not to worry, we're definitely replacing the casters. 

The "before" picture.

There is a dramatic difference b/w the finished leg and the unfinished ones.