1960s Past and Present

I've been on the search for some old movie theatre chairs for about a year. The ones I found were either in pretty bad condition or were out of my price range. I searched and searched and thanks to craigslist, I found some. After getting a flat tire, borrowing a friends pick up truck, driving 2 hours into Illinois, stopping at a Pizza Hut in the middle of no where, and driving back 2 hours to Indianapolis, THEY WERE MINE

This is the process of how I Re-Did them...Enjoy!

Original Photo of the 1960s Movie Theatre Seats

1. TAKE PICTURES! DOCUMENTATION IS KEY!
     i. This is one of the most important steps. If you don't take photos you may not remember how they were assembled and they won't be properly put back together. I took pictures of each bolt/nail/screw so I knew where each one went.

2. Take the chairs apart
     i. Put the bolts/nails/screws in a box or zip lock bag so you don't lose any of them.

3. Time for Staining
    i. This part and upholstering the seats themselves take the most time. I used 2 different types of sand paper for stripping the wood.
    ii. 60 coarse sandpaper is the roughest type of paper that was used. This worked great for stripping the layers and layers of stain that had been previously on the wood. Then I lightly went over the wood with 100 coarse paper. The higher the number the finer the paper and the smoother the wood will be.
   iii. The arm rests used 150 coarse paper so these were a little more smooth than the backs of the chairs.

These are what the back of the seats and the arm rests look like originally and after they were sanded down.

4. After the wood has been stripped the next step is to stain them!
    i. I dusted the wood off first, before staining, getting all of the saw dust off of the chairs. This helps when you go to stain because you won't have any clumps from the saw dust. 
   ii. I used Minwax Polyshades Bombay Mahogany Satin (380) Stain
   iii. I put on about 3 coats per each piece of wood

5. Next comes the Upholstering. This was a bit tricky. I've never upholstered anything before so I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing. I went to the nearest fabric store (Crimson Tate, Indianapolis) and found some great patterns.
    i. You'll need a staple gun and staples. I basically just dove into this and figured out what I was trying to do along the way. Once I figured out how to fold the fabric so it looks nice, I was good to go.

6. Painting the Metal.
    i. The bottom of the seats are spray painted a clean and crisp white, while all the other metal is spray painted Rust-Oleum Gloss Protective Enamel.

***Make sure you get paint that is specifically used for metal, otherwise the paint will scratch right off***



7. WAIT, WAIT, AND WAIT
     i. Depending on the paint that is used, you may have to let it sit over night to ensure that it's dry when you go to put the chairs back together.

8. ASSEMBLE!!
    i. Once everything is dried, stained, upholstered and you're happy with it all, put those bad boys back together!

Below is a photo of what the seats originally were and then the final outcome of all my blood, sweat and hard work paid off to look like

I still have 2 more sets of these and can't wait to get started on them!!