This is what we started with. Four interesting and slightly unusual dining chairs in a terrible state.
They had been in a cellar in several inches of water and had rotten feet, damaged and stained seats and various bits of shellac/varnish/old white paint on them.
The wood was very degraded so a light clean and French polish was a no-no and stripping chemically would have partially dissolved them!
Issue two is the slight top-heaviness of the design which went slightly beyond quirky toward visually odd. I look at a piece for ages before deciding what to do and these definitely needed a lighter look. And I didn’t want to reupholster and lose the characterful leather seats; but these are quite battered.
So they are being painted and patinated & waxed in one of our mixes. 
The chair bottom right above & right(before) and below (after)- was the first to be completed. If anyone wants a “how to rescue something that looks like it’s beyond economical repair”post, I will be happy to detail the process…
Blog-sur-Aude 
Rotten feet, damaged seats, old paint….I can relate! If only someone would refurbish this old chair so beautifully! 😉
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Yes, sadly things fall apart…………….
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Wow the chair looks wonderful, well done
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Thank you Chris. I’ll post all four when we’ve finished!
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It’s a triumph … The difference the contrast of relaxed neutral paint and the weathered, aged leather is fabulous. Very elegant and absolutely hitting the mark between contemporary-vintage and preserved-antique. Rescue chic at its best 🙂
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I’ll just quote you I think!
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Feel free 😉
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Came out beautifully in this light neutral. Is it a sort of dove grey? I am curious as to what kind of treatment you were able to give the water damaged feet and legs to help prevent future splitting.
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It’s between taupe and grey; my favourite light neutral;Shall I do a details post?
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Wow!
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Thanks Nadia! They will be such a transformation when all done. We won’t do a table to match till we get a buyer and they can stipulate shape & size of table and how many it needs to seat. If they need more chairs, we will source some to complement these four.
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“I look at a piece for ages before deciding what to do…”
A great guideline. We try to use the same technique with the music but unfortunately there are times when we look at something for so long our minds wander and we forget what we were supposed to be doing in the first place.
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happens to me all the time VP!
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I’m a little tired of the whitewashed look all over but it’s very successful here. The chair does look lighter and more delicate with the lighter color.
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Thanks-I’m not a fan of badly whitewashed/ distressed stuff either, though I’ll do classy white paint if a customer wants it! However, a soft but rich neutral like this mix is very effective . Goes into any colour scheme too
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You did it well here!
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Thanks!
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Such a subjective thing, the ‘beyond economical repair’ issue. I would always argue that things are ‘irreplaceable’ and so economics can be damned. (But you know that!)
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I concur , I will rescue anything! but these were certainly beyond a stage that anyone other than you or I might still deem rescuable..
Interestingly, I was asked a few weeks ago if I actually thought our house was worth rescuing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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How shocking! Anyone can see that it was and is worth it. But I guess if everyone had the same idea of ‘worth rescuing’ we wouldn’t have our places, would we?!
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No, and if their potential had been spotted by others, we wouldn’t have picked them up for peanuts either
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