Long Cold Nights...Flea Markets Shut...Few Estate Sales? Time For Some Winter Projects. Status: Let It Begin...Let It BEGIN!!!

Oh...it's begun. And it is ON buddy. Me and these Paul McCobb chairs as well as this third piece to my newly acquired Lane living room table set have a date with destiny. These are the pieces I vow to have back in use this winter. I know, I know...the table. That's a cake walk. No problem. But those chairs, well...that's a whole another ball of wax.

First things first with this Lane end or side...or even lamp table. I've got to get a piece of glass

cut for the top. Obviously I'm not going to do this myself. I'm not up for anything like that. I'll

leave that to the professionals.

The boo boos on the frame however represent a challenge I am willing to accept. I've been

itching to try out the Howards Restore-A-Finish. I've heard nothing but good things about it.

The Howards Feed-n-Wax is a great product so I can't imagine being disappointed by the

Restore-A-Finish. I'll grab up a can next time I drop by True Value Hardware store. And

that should just about take care of the table. NEXT!

If you'll remember back to early last summer (oh I know...it's such a bitter sweet thing that I

ask), I found a set of four Paul McCobb dining chairs at the Goodwill in Fairview Heights Il.

(about 30 miles from here, but on the way to the Drive In movies). It was a serendipitous find

as it wasn't a planned trip to the thrift store. We just had a few extra minutes to kill before the

movie and I couldn't help myself.

Nice set of chairs, but here's the rub - the caning that is

supposed to fill the seatbacks was missing.  I did a little

web searching and with the help of Jonathan Goldstein

I was able to find the appropriate style of canning to

restore the seatbacks properly...or at least as properly

as I'm likely to get. I had no idea how tricky it would be

to get the caning for this project. I thought I'd just have

to put "chair caning" (or some such nonsense) in the

Google answer box and it would tell me where the

nearest hobby shop is. No such luck. Then I asked the

the one person who's always had the answers to life's

toughest questions: Mom. She told me to try this place

in old St. Charles called WSI distributors. Yup, they

totally had what I needed but aren't open weekends (unless

you call and make an appointment, I think). I dropped by and picked up what I needed

last week on one of my days off. Score!

Another problem - two of the chairs have cane spline glued into

the groove that must be removed before the new caning and

spline can be installed.  I've already started on one of the chairs

and 3/4 of it came out pretty easily while the last 1/4 is proving

to be glued in there rather well.  I don't really have the proper

tools for this but I'm not going to go buy no tools just for two

chairs!  I don't plan on making a habit of this, believe me.  It'll

be nice to have some experience doing this in case I need to do

it again...and if the issue comes up more often than I expect,

well...maybe then I'll look into buying some proper tools for the

job.  Until then I'll be jabbing small screwdrivers into my digits

like I did the other night...and losing copious amounts of life fluid

in the process.  I might need to invest in a suture kit as well. Don't

you think these are gonna be mighty fancy sittin' pieces when

done?!