Monday, September 6, 2010

4 Of A Kind, Some Lawn Chair Restoration.

OK OK, I know I don't need anymore lawn chairs!
But I didn't have this style of chair, and they are four matching chairs... and come on I mean good for the Drive-In right?!  I mean this only brings me to 34 pieces of lawn furniture.... "THIRTY FOUR PIECES OF LAWN FURNITURE?!"  I hear you, and my Mother cry.   Well.... umm.... seating will never be a problem at my place? haha.  I found these on Craigslist, and I need to stay off that site I keep finding junk to buy!  But saw these lawn chairs called the gut and haggled over the phone (which I dislike) he wanted $100 and after much haggling $80 was the final price. (DAMN I'm rusty! In my lawn chair buying prime I could talk down a set of four lawn chairs from $100 to $40.)  I liked them so I payed the price, Happy Birthday to me!  When I met the guy at Lowes to pick them up, he said "yeah , they are good old chairs, I just have to many of them"  I thought "Sir, you have NO idea"  and then as he unloaded the chairs out of his truck he glaned over at my trusty old Lincoln Town car and asks "Are you going to be able to get all of these in there?" I replied "Sure!" while thinking 'Haha this isn't my first lawn chair rodeo'. haha 2 minuets later I had 3 in the back seat and 1 in the passenger seat  hauling like a champ!
When I got the chairs home  I buzzed them down with the electric wire brush to see the problem spots, Dad spot welded the busted arm rests.
That's the only problem I have when restoring vintage lawn chairs, usually the bottom tubing that holds the chair up is rotted. and in this case the water had collected in the arm rests and either rusted its way out, or froze in the winter and busted the tubing.
(There's the culprit! All the chairs needed new tubing on the bottom)
So I used the chop saw, and cut the rotted parts out. I then cut new pieces of tubing to fit in the place of the old ones.
Dad does a great job 'brazing' the tubing together, after that they get wire brushed a little more and then they were ready to paint the next day! These 4 chairs had  a perfect mate waiting for them at the Casablanca, until now this round metal table had been the misfit in the lawn chair dept. In  all my chairs I didn't have any that looked good/ fit around it but now!
(Now its a perfect match! The table received a new coat of fresh white paint)
(Mean while the chairs, received a new coat of.... drum roll please!)
LIME GREEN! Suggested by Micheal over at Cul-de-sac shack, and confirmed by Girlfriend Patricia! (Patricia and I picked out the color the day I picked them up at Lowes)  and after a week of worth of work...
Ta-Da! Just in time for Labor day weekend, I absolutely LOVE the way they turned out! The hardest part was picking out the color (almost always is) and it came down to Lime Green, Turquoise, or Red. All great colors but Lime Green was clearly the way to go! And now we have a new color lawn chair  at the Casablanca, (the only ones that wont need repainting in the spring.

Id like to give a special thanks to my Dad.
This man can literally fix ANYTHING!  It blows my mind some times and if he does it,whatever it is will last FOREVER.
Id also like to thank Michael for the suggestion of Lime Green looks amazing! However onw that I have four crisp new paited chairs, all thew rest are looking a little worse for ware, I know what i'll be doing next spring! Paint, paint paint! Haha

-Mick-

9 comments:

Missouri Michael said...

Wow, those took a lot of work, but they sure look great! The lime green looks even better than I imagined it would! Great job!

Straight Talking Mama! said...

I love the lime green a lot! I love the lawn chairs even more, we just don't get this style of lawn furniture I long for some but I guess by the time they made it over it that would cost a LOT of money!

jamie@midcenturymania said...

Can you and your dad come over to my house? I've got a few projects for you! You two are amazing. The chairs look great and I'm sure they are very sturdy after the slick welding job your dad did. Beautiful choice of color.

1950s Atomic Ranch House said...

Gee wiz! Welding too!? I'd love to have him make me an atomic sculpture out of metal!

Lucky you to have such a great Dad!

Chairs look ah-mazing!! You can never have too many metal lawn chairs.

Hee hee... =D

Oh and lamps and clocks and boomerang ashtrays ha ha...

Linda @ A La Carte said...

Love these chairs Mick! The shape of them is fantastic and Lime Green is perfect! Great job and your Dad is great to help with the welding!!

Amber Von Felts said...

Nothing like father son bonding woth lawn chair repair. You and your pop are very clever and handy! They look great.

Vintage Christine said...

Let me just add my congrats at your amazing chair rehab. I probably would've gone with red but now that I see the green it looks incredible. Great job and your dad rocks!

Uncle Atom said...

The chairs turned out great - I have a stick welder I haven't tried using yet. Once I learn I'll have a lot of welding to do.

Unknown said...

Any idea what the brand is on these? Bought a similar wet today with round back. Paid $140 for 4. Ours are in great shape... no rust through. Painted nasty brown... will be refinishing. The cross braced bottom (not bouncers) are not nearly as common. Mine are like this too.