For the new house we've bought a 50's Dutch design table and separate 4 50's Dutch chairs. The furniture has elegant lines, the table can be made bigger by pulling the sides and inserting an extra piece (hiding underneath) in the middle.
I knew that in the 50's Dutch furniture fabrics used mainly teak and palisander wood. Both are hardwood. Palisander has a dark reddish brown color and teak has a grey-brown color with a hint of red tones. Teak has a high oil content and is very durable. The chairs are also very comfortable.
I loved the shapes but didn't like the dark reddish brown fifties color. So I decided to sand away the dark varnish...
I used a rubber sanding block and it wasn't easy to get the deeper layers of varnish off! I'm halfway with the first chair and quite pleased with the results.
Once everything is ready I have to get some light colored, good quality upholstery fabric instead of the original green artificial leather to cover the seats. I'm looking forward to the sewing part of the job! The wood will be treated with oil or perhaps a thin layer of clear matte varnish.
To be continued!
UPDATE:
The color of the wood doesn't seemed even, and it took forever to get rid of the varnished layer, so I decided to stop with sanding the chairs and painted the chair back in the original color... One thing I'm going to do is to change the original artificial leather cushions into a lighter colored upholstery fabric.
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