The Library Chair. And a friendly reminder.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Yes indeedily-do, the Library Chair!


As you may recall, I got this chair from a guy on Craigslist.  It's been sitting in the garage ever since. Why?  Because it was stinky smelly.  And it had lots of icky spider web balls underneath and ew yucky yuck!  Eww!!  Gives me the willies.

Since I'm in-process with the concrete countertop and I made the choice to coat the interior of the form with the same polyurethane that I used for the pantry floor, I have to wait and do other things.  Finn smeared his paw through the what-I-thought-was-dry-and-set-after-three-days poly yesterday, so I opted to do a second coat.  Which means it needs to sit, dry, and cure much longer than I anticipated.  Aaarrrgggg!!!

Here's the form with the built up piece masking for the sink cutout, first coat of poly on.
Oy.  I hope I didn't make a mistake with the poly.  Insert biting of nails here.

Anywhooo, the chair, right?!

Heavier than I thought it would be, that bugger.  Mike had ever so kindly taken it out of my car for me so I didn't know.  Boy, I'll feel it tomorrow -- lugging it out of the garage, up the back steps, up to the second floor, down the hall....It was worth it though.  Some suffer for fashion; me, I suffer for design.  ;)

So.  It was loose when I originally bought it so I flipped it over today.  I had previously torn off the black webby covered bottom fabric.  Yuck!!

Ew ew ew, spider yuckies!!
Underside and Finn, my ever-present helper pooch, making sure it's safe for me to touch.
All those years of dealing with crappy crummy furniture while doing props pays off here.  But it's not hard to fix and adjust a chair.  Just take a studied look at it, unassemble it in your brain, then take it apart, work with it, and reassemble.

I started by taking the whole leg base piece off.


Turns out the metal part that spins the chair was loose on the legs part, so I tightened the screws down.  A foot was loose as well; tightened that puppy up.

Before.
While I had the leg base section off I thought I'd try some Restor-a-Finish* stuff that I picked up for a different piece of furniture.

After.
In this case it made so little improvement I thought eh, not worth a lot of effort.  I gave the metal spinny part a good spray of WD-40 then reattached the base back to the chair.


Part of the problem with old chairs or old furniture or old what have you is old screws and old screw holes that aren't excited about being updated or messed with.  The old screws didn't want to go back in and stay in so I went foraging through my large collection of mismatched attachment devices and found what I think go with some Ikea thing.  They were wider and they worked.  I couldn't get one to stay in the fourth hole but the base was secured pretty solidly so I said screw it.  Ah ha, pun!


And here is the chair in the room.  Per my Mom's great suggestion, I moved my fave little table from my grandparent's house into the room and I think it works quite well.  Good job Mom!


Nice, right?!  Loving it.

I discovered that the Stella Maris light fixture I installed doesn't have a long enough cord and chain to be swagged over the chair so I'll give that some thought.  I could always get a longer cord and longer chain.  We'll see.


But cool, right?  Works well with the black paint, with the pallet wood blinds, with all the books!

So now I can definitely start planning and envisioning how I want to create the DIY rug, what shape it should take, how I want to execute it.  I'll sit in the room on the opposite end for a bit, stare, tilt my head a few times, and it'll come to me.  I'm excited!  The ball is a-rollin' now, folks, look out.

On another note....

Yesterday at the park we had a run in with an off-leash dog, Finn and I.  Finn, as I've mentioned, we don't know entirely yet and he's been reacting not-so-friendlish towards other dogs, so we stay clear.  It's tough because there are irresponsible folks in the park.  It hit me like a pile of bricks the other day, the realization:  he's protecting me, keeping me safe from other dogs, hence his reactions.  Hailey protected me but she was ok with other dogs.

We came around a bend where the path is hidden by a hill and up popped a woman with her dog running all amok.  Finn and I stopped, kinda trapped in the situation with nowhere to go as they were already too close to turn heel.  Before I knew it, her dog was running at us.  I yelled to her to stop her dog several times, but she didn't bother to utter a word and looked unfazed.  I heard her talking to the dog just prior so I knew she was capable of speaking.  The dog ran up, Finn jumped straight up in the air, hopped to one side then jumped full on square, straight up huge and tall right into the other dog's face.  I freaked inside.  I didn't know what Finn was going to do and in a flash imagined a terrifying blood bath.

Thankfully the dog ran off and no one was hurt but ooooh my goodness was I upset.  I snapped at the woman, "you should leash your dog."  She didn't even look at me, turned and walked away with her dog still off leash.

I wrote a letter to the alderman.  I'm contacting the police to respectfully request ramping up leash law enforcement.  It's dangerous.  For everyone.  No one, absolutely no one ever knows their dog 100%, how they will react each and every time.  It's impossible.

We have a police officer friend who said to call 911 when we see off leash dogs.  I'm not gonna lie, I'll feel weird calling 911 about that, but I will do it.

We won't stop going to the park though.  I won't stop telling people to leash their dogs, snide rude responses be damned.  I will be the Crazy Park Leash Bitch if I have to be.  I just hope they don't end up being sorry for the folly of their ways.

I know you all know this but please leash your dogs.  xo

*The Restor-a-Finish is an Amazon affiliate link.  Mwah, thanks!

4 comments

  1. Hi Becky, the chair looks great in your library, I can't wait to see what kind of rug you come up with. So the smell...did it go away?... it must have or you wouldn't have put it in the house. I have a velvet, tufted headboard that I bought from a friend who bought it from her friend who was a smoker. I'm planning on painting the headboard which I thought would eliminate the smell (it doesn't reek or anything, just smells a little). Anyway, I brought it inside yesterday and sprayed it down with undiluted vinegar (a suggestion I found online). And it seems to have worked! I just stuck my nose in the headboard and it smells semi fresh even! And it didn't damage the velvet at all. So I guess what I'm saying is that if you notice that your chair still smells a little after having it in the room for awhile try spraying it down with vinegar!

    I have a dog who always acted like she wanted to rip other dogs apart and she's small and wanted to take on dogs twice her size! Well, one day my daughter and I took my dog Roxanne and her dog Pongo to a local dog park where ALL the dogs are off-leash. I was so nervous that she was going to get in a fight so I kept her on leash and walked around with her. Finally someone came up (very nicely I might add... lucky for them!) and asked why she was still on-leash. I explained and she said that usually in a neutral territory where everyone is off-leash the dogs get along fine... so I very nervously took her off the leash to test out this theory and by golly it worked! I was so shocked. She ran around there like she was a puppy again! (she's 14 and a very pudgy English bulldog/scotty dog mix) And now she LOVES going to the dog park. I know where you walk Finn is neutral territory but maybe he reacted like he did because he was on-leash and the other dog was not. And I am NOT suggesting that you take Finn off too, not at all. I think people should have their dogs on leashes too when walking like that. But it is something to think about, if you have actual fenced in dog parks where you live, maybe one day give it a try... after you've gotten to "know" Finn better...although I'm not sure what I'd do if a big dog like him got in a fight so maybe not! lol!

    Tania

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  2. Tania! Thank you so much! That tip about the vinegar, great idea! So far I haven't noticed the chair being stinky so I may be in the clear but if not, I will definitely try your idea.

    We do have fenced in dog parks here and we have talked about taking him to one. It makes me totally nervous, as you said, because he's ginormous and what would I do if something went awry. Mike would have to be with us. A friend did suggest maybe it was a leash thing and maybe off he'd be fine which is a possibility. But indeed, all the what-if's for a new-to-us dog who is a year and a half old coming from a crappy situation we know nothing about -- heh, it turns me into crazy protective Mommy! ;) We will keep trying though as I suspect he's actually ok with dogs. We do have a photo of him playing with another Shepherd at the rescue, soooo....But that was a stressful place for him too. As you can see, I'm a million ways topsy turvy!

    Thanks so much for taking the time to write!

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  3. I love your dark library walls. The color is so soothing and relaxing.

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