My Mid-Century Modern Dining Chairs

Pin It Now! When we first moved to Boise in January, we commissioned our talented friend, Shayne to build us a new kitchen table. For the first ten years of our marriage, we ate our meals at a tiny 2'x4' computer desk... functional but very cramped. So we indulged ourselves and hired Shayne to build us the table of our dreams. Solid walnut, clean lines, modern flair... we LOVE it. For months I searched for the perfect chairs to compliment it. Finally, I came across a set of six mid-century modern teak chairs on craigslist... $250 for the set. I seriously thought I had died and gone to heaven! I showed them to Denzil and he thought they were the ugliest things in the world, but I told him to trust me, and he finally gave in with a whatever.

So I pulled off the 50-year old upholstery and crusty foam and sanded the chair frames down to their bare wood. This took me many weeks and provided me with a high-fiber diet of sawdust. Then I restained them a dark walnut color and gave them three coats of satin lacquer. Even Denzil agrees that they do our new table some serious justice :)


As for the the upholstery, I was torn on whether to cover the seats with vinyl. I knew the chairs would see a lot of abuse from my kids, and finally came to terms that my beautiful chairs needed to be covered with some ghetto vinyl... I used a frosted clear vinyl over my fabric, which I think was a tad less tacky with its less-shiny glare. This is a picture of day two after finishing my chairs:

Spilled cereal? Nothing my waterproof vinyl can't handle ;) Yep, totally glad I went with the vinyl.