Complete Chair Set
Once I moved in into my first apartment and I did not have any furniture of mine. Being a student and not having a steady income buying good furniture was not considered by me as an option. Moreover, over a couple of first weeks I got most of stuff from my friends and was missing only dining chairs.
IKEA was an obvious thought that came across my mind as a place where I could afford furniture from. I should say, not many people expect great quality from anything purchased in this store - especially furniture. Nowadays, more and more people stick to a habit of renewing furniture in their homes often and therefore buying brand new high quality, high price, furniture is being less and less popular. That is the reason, in my opinion, why IKEA is so successful - most of people buy furniture there because they do not need it to last 10-20-more years.
Philosophy aside, I chose more or less stable chair that cost only $19.99 per one. Packed four of them, threw four additional cushions - $5 each, and headed out of the store.
IKEA Original Chair
Chair Cushion
Not expecting any high performance from this product “as is”, I started thinking of what I could do to make it last a bit longer then it would otherwise. This “brainstorming” led me to a plan that I successfully followed:
- I assembled the chairs using included instructions, except that I put a wood glue in ALL the joints of the chair - that would definitely increase chair’s life and prevent the screws from getting loose and the chair from getting flimsy. ( If you ever try to repeat this make sure not to leave too much glue outside of the joints as that will ruin the staining process - wood stain will not stain wood under a spill of glue and would cause not uniform color. You can typically remove a spill with a wet warm cloth. )
- After the glue dried I sanded the chairs and applied the first coat of the wood stain. (just followed the instructions on the can)
- After the first coat of wood stain dried I took a small grit sandpaper and went over the chair surface one more time as the staining caused all tiny splinters on the surface to curl up and stiffen.
- Then, I applied several more coatings of the wood stain to achieve the anticipated color.
- Finally, after several coatings of polyurethane were applied, the chair set was complete and ready to use.
Chair Set, After
I should say the chairs came out not too bad looking - very close to those that cost $60 per each in same IKEA 
Complete Chair Set
Tags: chair, improvement, wood working
