Is it a chair covered in apholstery?
After years of reading Moby, I can't tell if "apholstery" is a typo, or just a joke I don't get.
If there's cloth, it's probably a couple hundred dollars to have it done professionally. If it's just wood, you apparently want to refinish it. (You don't actually say what's wrong with it. Ratty how?)
Refinishing means dissolving off the old finish and rubbing on a new one. Modern plasticky finishes are harder to do either well. Old finishes, you figure out if it's shellac or varnish or hardening oil or just plain oil or wax, in order of durability, and rub down with the appropriate solvent. Then you rub on any stain you want and some kind of oil, varnish, or shellac, in order of difficulty. Excellent to do while thinking something through.
There's probably a pro with a dip tank who could do the first step, kind of badly.
Do you have to get rid of it soon if you don't get it finished? And if you keep it but have to stash it somewhere, is there somewhere you can put it where it will be reasonably preserved for a while?
You could get a new chair and hold off on the decision, is what I'm saying.
6: There's a spare bedroom, but it's filling up quickly with things we have doubles of, including a TV, desk, and futon. I'd rather decide yay/nay on this chair now.
In that case, I'd refinish it if the cost is anywhere near what a comparable replacement would be. Maybe even if the cost were slightly higher because of 1) you already like it and there's no guarantee that a replacement will be good enough and 2) sentimental/heirloom value. But I have a hard time finding chairs I like.
Nice chair. IME cost of redoing it will depend on whether it needs to be re-sprung as well as re-padded and covered. Cost is likely to be much the same as buying a new chair of comparable quality, although more, obvs, than buying a piece of shit furniture that falls apart in ten years.
Get several quotes and don't necessarily go with the cheapest. Try to get a feel for whether the person actually loves their work - it's worth paying a little extra for. We found a guy who re-upholstered and made good a set of six dining chair which are 200 years old and honestly they look like new. But it cost a bit, and we could have got some kind of job done for a lot less. You need to work out where the curve of your budget intersects with the curve of your affection for the chair.
3: My phone didn't know how to spell it.
OT: just finished Gone With The Wind. That's some hideous stuff. It actually gets creepier as it goes on.
11. A courageous effort in a noble cause, although I'm not sure which one.
If it's still in good enough shape to be reasonably comfortable to sit on -- the problem's mostly visual -- you could get a slipcover. They never really look good, but you can hide the rattiness of the chair, wash the slipcover when it needs it, and put off fixing the chair until the budget really allows for it.
That chair doesn't look too bad, at least in terms of condition, so I'm not really sure what the issue is. I mean, personally I'm not too keen on the aesthetics, but it also looks very comfortable and it's not as if the upholstery has any huge gashes or stains or whatever. Just a missing button it seems.
A friend of mine who is very capable with this sort of thing got a book on reupholstering from the library and tried her hand at an old chair like that. Getting the right stuffing (horsehair I think?? hay? something surprising) and springs was tricky, and ultimately (after months of tinkering on and off) she got it looking great but actually not being that comfortable to sit on. TOO springy! So this is a cautionary tale in favor of paying a professional.
The wood in Stanley's chair does look very nice. I would get it reupholstered in a bold Scandinavian print and blow the aesthetics' mind!
On first glance, the chair looks like a glowering, plaid, trunkless elephant.
That chair should be placed in the alley. It wouldn't last 30 mins in my alley before someone else snatched it.
Getting the right stuffing (horsehair I think??
Probably horsehair if she was being all authentic, like. But Don't Do That! A surprising number of people are allergic to the stuff and a friend of ours sat on a horsehair stuffed chair not long since and actually stopped breathing (she started again in time).
I realise this prolly doesn't worry Stanley and the person whose groom he may become, but you never know who's going to call in.
Once you start breathing, stopping gets really uncomfortable.
If it has sentimental value to you, or you really enjoy picking out fabrics and doing this kind of project, then go for it. Otherwise no. It will find a good home.
From what I know of Stanster (purges birthday cards, very busy with drums), I think you want permission to ditch it. Ditch with a clear conscience.
Upholstery costs rather a lot, but I am in favor of the keeping of things one has grown attached to. Think about it this way: if you get rid of it, and you have any irrational feelings about inanimate objects, you are going to have to drop it off at a thrift shop and wonder (despite your otherwise rational view of the world) if it is sad about this state of things. Um, or maybe that's mostly just me that does that.
got a book on reupholstering from the library and tried her hand at an old chair
I have only ever seen this yield so-so results. (Sample size of not more than 3 or 4.)
I have a job refinishing and selling furniture! no, that's false, I have the now slightly-more-lucrative job of deciding what furniture to refinish in which ways and then sending it to the pros. my first inclination was to tell you to throw it out/pass it on. you could probably go to a flea market and get lucky, and get one with a better-quality frame, and get by with that for a few years, until you can afford to re-upholster that. IRL, you've got this chair, you got it from your parents, and you like it, so truck it to the upholsterer's and have a good quality slip-cover made to measure. they will always be better than the mass-produced catalog ones (be not lured by their promises of complete wonderfulness!!)
you are going to have to drop it off at a thrift shop and wonder (despite your otherwise rational view of the world) if it is sad about this state of things.
Sometimes I think Smearcase is in my brain. (But in this case, not in Stanley's brain.)
21: Oh my god yes. As a child I avoided the stuffed animal department of toy stores, because the sight of them all sitting there, homeless, was unendurable.
23: If you go to Ikea, you can buy a slip-cover and then get a chair that is made to measure for the slip-cover.
But in this case, not in Stanley's brain.
Oh, I dunno. The matching couch got left at the old house, and at last check they had moved it to the front porch, where it's currently being rained upon. I find its fate rather sad and wish I had had room for it. Which is to say, I have occasional sympathy for inanimate objects. (Just not birthday cards.)
As a kid I was overly preoccupied with using each X equally so that none of them get their feelings hurt, where X = stalls in the school bathroom, or towels on different rungs in the bathroom, or walking on parts of the floor, etc.
21, 24, 25: I'm the same way. Getting rid of my furniture was difficult! (Car, even more so.)
I feel better knowing that heebie and oudemia share my madness. I started to tell my story about couch cushions but it was way too sad. Let's just say sometimes the curb where they collect discarded things is covered in snow.
Sure, hang me out to dry on 28. Remember when Bugs Bunny dressed up as a girl bunny and was really hot?
The only honest end for a good couch is to put it on the railroad tracks, soak it in lighter fluid, and have an illegal cremation. Don't let it sit on the porch for the whole winter.
12: I have now started to reread "Battle Cry of Freedom" as a kind of brain bleach, just to make sure that my understanding of the US civil war remains reality-based.
Don't let it sit on the porch for the whole winter.
That's where I keep my venison and guns.
As a kid I was overly preoccupied with using each X equally so that none of them get their feelings hurt, where X = stalls in the school bathroom, or towels on different rungs in the bathroom, or walking on parts of the floor, etc.
It's oppressively hegemonic and privileged to assume that floors like to be walked on - and let's not even talk about bathroom stalls.
As the more recent post notes, this sort of thinking is extraordinarily insensitive:
"Certainly were no picketing signs. Blacks were perfectly satisfied with what was happening."
You have a new place. You need new stuff. Out with the old. In with the new!
Out with the old. In with the new!
That's on your shingle, isn't it?
You have a new place. You need new stuff.
This is why the economic footprint of the west is what it is. A decent chair should last three or four generations.
Start making babies at 15 and you can get five generations out of a chair.
Stop having sex with the furniture, Moby.
36: I'm pretty sure that man at the end is the devil.
On the furniture. It's a whole different thing, not that the people at the furniture store wanted to hear it.
Obviously I endorse 41. Also, that chair was probably made in, what, the 1950s? I have coats older than that. (Not many.) Give it a good steam-cleaning and replace its button.
This is why the economic footprint of the west is what it is. A decent chair should last three or four generations.
This is true, BUT. Once you live in a place with a gigantic amount of material excess, there's no harm in treating Goodwill like a library for your furniture.
Get rid of the orange varnish and it will look 50 times better.
Chris and Clew have made me feel bad.
Get a can of spray paint and a Rage Bunny stencil from mcmc. That should fix up that chair for your kids.
Goodwill as a library works really well if everyone is in a caretakey mindset; less well (but better than the front porch) if everyone is in a throw-away mindset like the Kids These Days.
Although... aren't people all terrified of bedbugs in used furniture now?
If you are interested in having a project, the adult school in my city teaches upholstery. Perhaps there is a class in your adult school or the local community college on this skill, and lo, you already have just the chair to work on!
OT: You use mice to eat the stink bugs. Then cats to eat the mice. Then alligators to get the cats. The alligators? Winter will get them.
35 was traumatic and 36 I assumed was going to come up so once I saw what it was I didn't watch! Poor little lamp.
Also, one of the skills in upholstery is sort of like tightening a drumhead.
54: Meaning most drummers don't know how to do it correctly? (Oh, snap!)
Poor little lamp.
Its semi-resemblance to the Pixar lamp makes it even worse!
Yeah, I flashed back to that and, basically, all the Toy Story movies.
56, 57: Great! Now pf has guilt!
Clearly I have no soul and was never a child, because I don't tend to anthropomorphize things. I tend to hold on to some things irrationally - books, some clothes, outdoor-sports-related toys and tools - but that's in case I ever want them again, however unlikely that might be. If I cared about how my Fox Trot collections and Heinlein novels feel, I'd assume they'd be happier in and out of used bookstores than sitting in my parent's dusty, barely-insulated attic.
All that being said, however, it can't hurt to cultivate heirlooms if you have the space. Books like I was talking about don't make good heirlooms but furniture is always useful, and Stanley's chair looks sort of nice. Given limited space in the spare bedroom, I'd throw out the TV and/or desk, probably the TV unless it's really new, and try to wedge the chair in its place.
I'm finding it hard to imagine a less transient lifestyle. It would be so weird to own stuff with the expectation that I'll still be using it in 30 years, to be invested in where I live and/or have the expectation that I'll still be living there in 10 years...