Wednesday, May 11, 2011

New project question: Ethan Allen Hancock Chairs

The weather has been such that my refinishing and building/painting projects have been put on hold until the weather warms and dries out a bit. In the mean time I'm always on the prowl for a fun find! I came upon two of these chairs. (one is upside down behind the one in the picture.)
I think they are fun! I love the curves in the arm and the tiny feet.
It even has this pretty cool looking eagle painted on it:
"So what is the problem then?" you are asking....The Rush seats on both of them are worn, Very dirty, and smell horrible.I scrubbed the whole chairs hoping at least the smell would die down. The wood seemed to like a scrubbing but the rush seats would not clean up and just seemed to get worse. You don't see the red and brown gooey food stains that were on the seat in the picture that I could not remove.
I know the chairs look great with rush seats but I have this rule about things coming into my house. If I can't get them cleaned of dirt and smelling better they can't stay no matter how cute their curves and tiny feet are. I looked rush seats up online. Lets just say PAIN IN THE BUTT! I would have to spend a wad to either do it myself or a small fortune to have it redone professionally. SIGH......Then a rash thought came to my mind. I grabbed a box cutter and started thrashing...
And when that provided some but minimal damage I grabbed the trusted Gerber!
And before I knew it I was at this:Looking at this picture you probably think I'm nuts but honestly when I brought the chairs in little spiders were running out of the seat it looks ok in pictures but up close it is smelly and yucky.
So now what to do. I can't really justify the cost to re-rush the seats. I also do not really like the color but painting it would mean I would lose the eagle and other gold lining that is painted on it. As for the seat I think I will cut a board the shape of that area and cover it in fabric for the time being. Now I just need to decide if I should paint them. I say yes what do you say?

1 comment:

  1. I'm so impressed! I can't wait to see the finished project!!! :)

    ReplyDelete