Good for Another Hundred Years

 I have finished caning the dining room chairs.  I ended up doing six total.  There was the first Ugly Chair that we had at the table.  Then I repaired the ruined one that had sat up in the attic. We picked up a few extras to round out our set of eight and ended up with nine matching chairs.  All but three of them had some degree of damage to the seats.

I enjoyed spending an afternoon in the woodshop.  I would put an audio book on my can speaker and arrange my tools and spend a couple of hours pulling cane.

I did three last spring and three this winter.  There is only room for six around the table, so now we have three extra chairs tucked here and there around the house.

The sixth chair is the one that I am most proud of.  I finally got neat little Xs around all four sides.  There may be a wayward strand here or there, but for the most part this is an example of a competent caning job.

I still have this oddball round, red chair to do for fun. Since I have been putting photos up on Facebook, I have had a few local friends mention that they have chairs that need to be repaired.  It might be fun to do one now and then.

Back to the Chairs

 I have been spending time in the workshop recaning more chairs.  I've now done chairs #4 and #5.  #4 is the fourth chair of our existing set of seven, and #5 is the $2 chair from the Tale of Four Chairs.  

When I flipped #5 over to knock the old seat out of it I realized that someone had been repairing on it in the distant past.  It had some big ole screws, and worse, glue in the holes.

Oh Crap!

Luckily the glue drilled out without too much trouble.  And in the end, it turned out to be the best caning job I've done yet.  The chairs I've done so far has been functional enough, but from a skilled craftsman's point of view, they all had some errors in them.  The true skill in weaving a cane seat is not in getting the basic weave right - the skill is in locking the cane into the edges in the strongest possible way.  It's in the choice of holes.  If you make the correct choices, you end up with neat little Xs all along the edges.  If you make incorrect choices, you end up with Vs.  Or even worse - Ks!

Chair #4 had too many Vs along the top and bottom.

And Ks along the left side.

Chair 5  Not perfect, but much better

When you are learning, telling the difference between Xs and Vs is like looking at an Escher print and figuring out if the stairs go up or down. 

Midway through chair four I was frustrated enough to set it next to me and start chair five with better choices.  And it turned out right.  A breakthrough!  Can you see the difference?

Upside down Vs

Each strand needs to go one hole over.

Perfect Xs

Again with the Vs

Xs!

And the right side turned out well too.

The left edge is still a little rough, but I'm not sure why.

As it turns out, there are many different shapes of chair seats from square to round and every thing in between.  What I have are "harp shaped" seats and, of course, those are more challenging than others.

Lucky me.

I have one more of our original seven that is beginning to tear.  I should probably go ahead and replace it now.  And that leaves me with one odd chair with a round seat.  I think I will try a different pattern on that.  Maybe stars.  Or daisies and buttons.

A Tale of Four Chairs

 

Remember how I said that I routinely run into these Eastlake style chairs?   Our table seats six people when all of the leaves are in it.  The seventh chair, being ruined, had resided in the attic since before we arrived.  We do have a side table and an empty spot in front of a window.  We have room for eight chairs,  I once saw a complete set of eight.  My husband and I are what collectors call "completists".  We want the whole set.  It was actually my husband who said he thought I should find an eighth chair to round out our set.

It is surprising the number of chairs you run into when you are actually looking for chairs. The nearest Antique Mall has about three dozen that I never noticed before. The Monday night auction house in the next county hauled a few dozen old project chairs out of a barn last week.  Somewhere in Northwestern PA there was a person who got it in their head to repair chairs.  And the project outlived them.  From the vague online photos I saw that one or two may be exact matches for our seven dining chairs.  To the average person, these all sort of look alike.  

Can you spot the one I'm looking for?

How about here?

As a newly minted ChairNerd I should round out my set of eight. Right?  Especially when a golden opportunity such as this presents itself.  A couple of years ago my husband was looking for a pair of oak arm chairs like you see in courtrooms, bank offices etc.  We checked this auction house's auction pics, and there were the perfect chairs.  And as I told him then I repeated now:  "when you send out a request to the Universe for chairs.  And the Universe gives you chairs.  You don't mull over whether you really need chairs or not.  You just go get the danged chairs."

 So off we went.  They were running two auctioneers in two rooms so my husband and I split up.  I figured I could get one or both chairs for under $10.  Chair #1 was in a lot of a dozen which appeared to have solid seats (after a hundred years they are all at their breaking point). We had to pay $7.50 for choice. Mission accomplished.  Chair #2 was in a pile of a dozen chairs in various states of ruin.  My husband paid $2 for choice on the ruined chairs.  

Chairs #1 and #2 are exact matches for our seven

And by the time he met back up with me and told me what he had been up to, he had also paid $1 a piece on single chairs #3 and #4 because he "felt sorry for them" and didn't want them to go on the burn pile with the other unwanted chairs.  

Chair #3 is very similar but has a perfectly round seat
#4 we call "Plane Jane" because she doesn't match anything

Chair #3 may be made of Black Walnut and has a round seat that is and inch and a half wider than our chairs.  Maybe good for larger people to save our "good" chairs?  I think I will try a different weaving pattern on it.  Plane Jane is going in our garage sale free to a good home.

And so it begins...

Gardening Day One

 Today the March snows have melted and the sun was shining.  It was the perfect day to spray the apple trees with dormant oil to take care of any creepy crawlies.  They will soon be budding out.  I pruned them quite hard last spring and they have put on a lot of new growth.  You can see below that there are many upright water sprouts in this one tree that need to come out.  That could be a sign of over pruning, but the tree did well otherwise.  Maybe it is due to last summer's drought stress.  This tree is in the drier of the two spots. The Gala sapling I planted last spring survived the winter well and looks like it will be the first tree to push new leaves.

The spring flowers are doing their best to brighten things up and there are even a few honey bees out and about.  I spread Milorganite fertilizer on all of the crocuses to discourage the deer.

Crocuses

Winter Aconite

This past Saturday I started some seeds indoors under grow lights.  Normally I would have been sowing peas, lettuce and carrots out in the raised beds this past week.  As part of my lower stress plan this year I am putting that off until April, which was just as well because last week was snowy and blowy and nothing like spring gardening weather.  But it is time to get the peppers started and it would be a good idea to have some lettuce transplants ready to go out.  To fill out the pepper tray I am trying some Celosia and Coleus.  I will also be seeding Celosia and Coleus out in the could frame next month along with the Marigolds and other annuals but I want to see if I can get some further along than I did last year.

First Flame Celosia and Tomb Thumb butterhead lettuce babies were awake this morning

Twenty years ago last Wednesday (beware the Ides of March) I moved into this shabby old farmhouse.  This extra chair was in the attic then, and there it stayed for lo these many years.  Baking away in the extremes of the attic, it had become as dry as an old chicken bone.   Knowing it was up there in its ruined state actually bothered me more than that one ugly chair we had at the table.  I feared if something wasn't done with it, the next people would maybe just throw it on a burn pile.

Someone must have tried to stand on it many years ago because it has a lot less wear and tear on it than the others do.  I don't know how long ago the previous owners had purchased these seven chairs.  It could have been sitting up there a mere ten years before I got here, or it could have been up there thirty years or more.  Either way, it needed a bath and it needed a lot of furniture polish.

Even if it has only been up there twenty five, thirty years or so, that's a few thousand less sittings than the others have endured.  Thus it is really in pristine condition.  Today it is almost ready to rejoin its mates.  Happy Anniversary olde chair.

Tomorrow I may get to tying it off and putting the finishing strip on it.

And then I'll see how it sits!

One Ugly Chair

 You know those things you've ignored for twenty years.... when you are retired, you kind of run out of excuses.  I've always got a list going of projects that need to be done and I've been working through them lately as winter is sure to be over soon and gardening will consume most of my time.  The dining room drapes was a big one, but there are always more.  Wash the sheers, clean the oven, dust the ceiling fixtures.  One thing that gets done once a year is I put all of the dining chairs up on the table and wipe down the rungs.  They don't get too dusty but they could always use a little oil.

Our dining table was here in the house when we got here.  It was the previous owners' mother's.  I date it to at least 1910 or older depending on whether she got it new or used.  It is American Chestnut, with a variety of leaf widths from a few inches to over a foot wide.  Its covered in character marks like burns and knife slips and I absolutely love it.  

The chairs are walnut with a burl inlay and date maybe as far back as 1890.  They are a common Victorian style and I run into very similar ones all the time when antiquing and once saw a complete set of eight which were dead ringers for these chairs.  For one hundred (or 130!) year old chairs they are extremely well preserved.  They creak and groan a bit but they are sturdy and all of their joints are tight.  However one of them has a dirty little secret.

All of the chairs have seat pads to protect them, but this one also had a piece of cardboard under the pad.  We always kept it on the far end which is hard to squeeze into and if we get that many people at our table, either my husband or I would sit in it mostly to protect it from further harm.   When we arrived twenty years ago, he took the time to weave it together with string and did a very fine job.  And guess what?  We have another one just like it stashed in the attic.

A couple of weeks ago when I cleaned and oiled the chairs I noted that two more are beginning to tear.  I made mention of this at the dinner table and my husband asked me  "What are you going to do about it?"  Well, what I had planned to do was nothing.  I figure they've lasted this long they'll probably outlast me, and with seat cushions you don't actually notice the condition of the seats.  Years ago I got a quote on how much it would cost to have someone else recane them for me.  Back then it was a dollar a drilled hole plus materials.  Now that doesn't sound like much until you start counting.  72 holes.  A quick Google trip through caning websites tells me the going rate is now between $2 and $4 a hole.  Plus materials.  Let's call it a 150 bucks a chair on the low side.  But I'm retired now and when you are retired you are supposed to pick up new hobbies right?  Like hand caning chair seats.  Hmmm.  What if I just fixed them myself?  

Now there are at least two kinds of caned chairs.  There is the kind where you buy a sheet of woven cane, cut it to size, and wedge it into a channel and secure it with a spline.  These are not that kind.  These are "hand caned".  Sort of like basket weaving in a tight space.  How do you even do that?  Inquiring minds want to know. I turned to my usual How-To information source: YouTube.  There were some very informative videos with links to online stores.  Before the day was over I had made up my mind and a simple caning starter kit for one chair was on its way.

My garden snips come in handy

That's a scary first step - cutting out the old seat.  

Now we are past the point of no return.

It doesn't look it, but that's a long reach way down inside those legs.

 Another chair lends a hand propping up my work and using an awl, I break through each loop of cane.  Just this level of inspection shows me that these chair seats were works of art.

Again with the awl, I pry the old finishing strip up and the remaining cane comes out easily

A rat-tailed file cleans the holes out
There is a hundred years of dirt and mildew in there.

All cleaned and oiled and ready for a new seat.
One hour in...

The chair already looks better.  These really are pretty little chairs.  They weren't really built for the modern day person's frame but they sure are well made.  They have withstood the test of time.

Steps one and two are easy and fun.  Step three involves just laying down one more layer with no weaving involved.  The pegs hold the loose ends and train them into the hole.  I could do this all day!

The first three steps just involve lacing the cane across and minding your holes so everything is evenly spaced.  It is sort of like those sewing cards I had as a kid.  It took a couple of hours of crouching over the chair.  I started to get tired and my lower back spasmed.  About six rows into the fourth layer, which involves actual weaving in and out of two closely spaced layers, my cane snapped and so did my patience.  Shit just got real.  There are obvious stopping points in this project where you need to regroup and compose your thoughts.  I had just found the first one.

 I moved everything from the dining room out to our workshop and took a day off to rest my back and organize my brain.  Returning refreshed, I worked through the next eleven rows in about half the time that the first six rows took.  Since that day I have found a caning needle made of spring steel which should make the intense step four much less painful.

Step 4 involves weaving through steps two and three.
My fourth layer is not as flat as I would like it to be.

The day after step four I took another break. This could not possibly be the way factory workers mass produced these chairs!  There had to be some tricks. I began digging deeper into YouTube videos and caning websites.  Turns out there is more than one way to skin a cat.  I ordered some tools and waited for them to arrive.  

Dental pick, Shell Bodkin and a wire caning tool

The new tools made a BIG difference.  The first videos I watched taught you to weave in a very basic way using only an awl and your fingernail.  Other caners whip through it with needles and picks, with reckless abandon even breaking and replacing canes in the process (not my sort of thing). And they soaked their canes for a much shorter time.  Armed with my simple yet revolutionary wire caning tool, a shell bodkin and a dental pick from my husband's tool stash, I set aside my simple awl and the needle nose pliers I had resorted to, and started on my first diagonal quicker and with less frustration but still carefully and methodically.

Its not perfect.  I can see my shortcomings,
but I catch my actual errors before they are irreversibly woven in.

Close up after step 5
Still a ways to go before those holes become octagons.

 At some point you start to wonder how you can get any more cane into the pattern.  The edge holes must fill up sometime.  The seat gets stiffer with each layer.  But the cane is flat and lays in with only a little wriggling and fighting.  The canes, like any natural substance, have variations.  Now and then you will get one that wants to shatter or twist or shred, others are pliable, smooth cane that goes in like a dream and you feel like you are flying through it.

Step 6 complete. Twelve hours of weaving.
Ready for binding (to cover the holes) and tying off.

Nice little octagons.

Much like needlepoint, of which my MaMaw taught me a little when I was a child, you have to be mindful of what is going on underneath and try to make that look just as tidy as the top work.  This is where I know my lack of experience shows.  My one remaining error is under here in a loose loop.  I had a lot of ends to tie.  I have been cutting the 15 foot strands of cane in half which makes it easier to weave, but gives you twice as many ends to tie off.  There is a way to hide many of your ends without knots and I plan to try that method on the next chair.

A wider strand is sewn over the holes to finish it.
This looked a lot easier on YouTube.  I was right to think the holes were filling up.

This has been the most instantly gratifying and useful skill I have ever taught myself.  Even more so than the time YouTube helped me rebuild the carburetor on our 1930 Ford.  I have two more chairs at the table that need to be done and the totally ruined one that is stashed in the attic that I have a spot for.  I am eager to start the next one so I can do even better than I did on my first chair.   I have spent fifteen hours over three weeks only working on it on days when I could set aside four hours to get into the project. 

When people have asked what I've been up to lately, it is so satisfying to show them a photo on my phone and have them say "where did you learn to do that?"  The chair looks pretty spiffy sitting at the end of the table in a place of honor, and it should be useful for another hundred years or so,

And finally..... I sat in it!