Weekend Treasure - Midcentury Modern Chair

"Estate Sale" the sign said. My girl and I drove past the house trying to find a place to park. No good place to park so I thought about skipping it - but it did say "Estate Sale" which is (supposedly at least in my mind) a step above a garage sale - so we parked a bit of a walk away and headed on over.

In front of the house were 2 big dumpsters...hmmm should have been a hint. An elderly man was running the show..."Everything next to the dumpsters are free" he said.

Everything should have been INSIDE the dumpsters I thought.

But then we spotted the chair. Not sure who saw it first but the girl pointed out "It's just like those chairs that the guy that built the Arch made." Just over a month ago we took the kids to the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum to see an exhibit on Eero Saarinen. Good to know that the girl was paying attention :) It reminds me of an Eero Saarinen tulip arm chair.

Now this chair was not right next to the dumpster so it was not free - but it was almost so at $2.

It was rusty and dusty but for $2 I thought I'd get it.

Course now I wished I hadn't parked so FAR AWAY. But hey it's exercise so it's all good :)

The girl was very excited to get her little hands on a clean-up project. As soon as we got home she wanted to attack it with steel wool and water and soap. I made her wait while I did some internet research to make sure we didn't ruin the chair (though some may say we ruined it by painting it as we did). We cleaned up the rust with sandpaper and some proverbial "elbow grease" (I hate using such phrases).

Here is the before photo:

Here is the after photo:

The cushion will not remain - I just put it there to give an idea of what it will look like when it's totally finished. We're gonna try to make a large flat cushion (in army green) - something that would look more like what the original cushion would have looked like. We decided to leave the rest of the chair in it's natural off-white shade.

The chair will go in the boy's room - the green matches his bedding and curtains (he is a little military aficionado). The chair swivels so I wonder how much reading will go on in it and how much spinning will take place.

For more "Today's Thrifty Treasures" head on over to Southern Hospitality.