An Almost Perfect Craigslist Buy

Since I blogged about standing while working on the computer and people mentioned how standing for too long a period might be a problem, I got to thinking I needed a chair, or maybe a bar stool.

Before

I also wanted something that would look better than our folding table to hold the keyboard.

I looked on Craigslist and found bar stool height table and chairs that could work beautifully.  We bought it for $75. from a fellow who'd just gotten his Ph.D.and was going to be moving to Texas.  It was more than I was going to pay.  However, it was so perfect for our needs that we paid his asking price despite the fact that we knew we'd have to do a lot of work on it.

He'd bought it unfinished from City Mill and used it that way.   There were gouges and a lot of stains on the table and chairs.  Wooden screw covers were also missing.

It took a lot of elbow grease to sand the surfaces to remove as much of the stains as we had the strength and energy to do.  We bought wooden covers from Home Depot which fit perfectly to cover the screw holes, tack cloth to take off the dust and Polycrylic sealer to finish it.  We filled the gouges with wood filler and sanded that down also.

After the sanding was done, we brought the table and chairs up to my office and I gave it two coats of the sealer.

After

And there it is!

Now I can stand or sit. Since there are two chairs, Art and I can sit side by side to talk to our kids and grandkid on Skype.

Now... then, I think I'll look for little cushions for the chairs.  No, not on Craigslist, maybe Ross?












POSTSCRIPT:
Commenter Hilorain asked exactly how we did the refinishing.

Here are the supplies we used.  I forgot to include the wooden plugs.  The grade of sandpaper we used was 100 for the first sanding.  Then I used 230 and the final sanding was 400.  I did sand with the 400 (extra fine) between sealer coats.  The instructions say 2 hours between coats and 24 hours before using the furniture.  Art is making me wait 48 hours.  My brother just came and said 3 days!  Arggh!

Since you're doing your hand railing, we're thinking you'd want to use a polyurethane or oil based sealer instead since it's going to undergo heavier traffic. An oil based sealer or polyurethane would be much more durable, I would think.