September 2, 2024

Antique Ice Cream Parlour Chairs | A Restoration Project

Nicole furniture projects 13 Comments

My parents bought two vintage wire ice cream parlour chairs at a garage sale years ago, and gave one to me and one to my sister. They are not the most comfortable seats in the house, but are definitely one of the most stylish. I didn’t know anything about this style of chair at the time, but one day when we were watching The Waltons, they had chairs like this in one of the episodes. Since then I’ve also seen them in several Western films and other TV shows from the 1940’s-1970’s. Ice cream parlours were popular from the late 1800’s to the mid 1900’s, and often were furnished with this style of wire chair. While I don’t know how old these particular chairs are, they had definitely seen better days and were in desperate need of a restoration!

I didn’t do anything for the first few years I had my chair, and lived with it as-is. These pictures above are from the first year we had them, when we used them at a party. After a few years, when I got tired of the lumpy paint, I stripped my chair down to bare metal and painted it. The seat was splintered, but I didn’t have a different piece of wood, so I flipped it over and upholstered it with some cream and yellow gingham fabric. (You can see the chair like that here in this craft room tour) I used it for years that way, but the fabric got dirty and there was no way to clean it, so it desparately needed a new seat.

I didn’t remember to take a before picture until I had disassembled the chair!

Earlier this year, my sister downsized and sold me her chair, so I decided to fix it up and turn them into a matching set. They truly were a labour of love, and took much longer than I thought they would, but here’s the process. 

First, paint stripper. I wish that I’d known about my new favourite stripper Circa 1850, but I didn’t so I used a can we had in our basement. It softened the layers, but didn’t go all the way through to the metal. There were at least four layers of paint on this chair- the lumpy gold and cream on the top, light turquoise, a different yellow cream, and in some places black! I think those bottom layers of paint were oil or enamel, because they didn’t want to come off.

It took many coats, and while the back and seat of the chair came off easier, the base of the chair took a lot of work. I wrapped it with plastic wrap at one point to keep the stripper wet for longer.

I used a wire brush and steel wool for much of the smooth metal, but ended up using a wire brush on a drill for the twisted pieces. In a few areas the old paint simply wouldn’t come off, but since I figured it wouldn’t be noticeable through the new paint, I left it.

After I’d gone over the metal pieces with steel wool, it was time to prime them with the BIN shellac primer. I thought I’d use this primer and see if it has better adhesion, since the chair I did years ago, did start chipping over time. We’ll see if this one holds up better!

The primer was a bit rough after spraying, so I did a light sanding with steel wool.

Then it was time to paint; I used the Rustoleum spray paint in the colour Heirloom White. This is the colour I’d used years ago and it’s warm, creamy white. However, when I painted the “new” chair I discovered the colour was slightly different than the old one! So, I ended up completely repainting the other chair instead of just touching up spots.

After the paint was done, I cut new seats. We recently pulled this thin plywood out of the basement, and it was perfect for the seats. I cut the wood with the jigsaw, not worrying about whether it was a perfect circle since the edge was hidden. This was my first time using the jigsaw, so I’m pretty glad with how it came out! The wood was a bit thinner than the plywood that had been there before, so I had to use shims along the edges when I assembled the seat.

Then I reassembled the chairs (one went together very easily, and the other one took at least an hour of fiddling!). Of course I didn’t think about putting down a towel for when the chairs were upside down on the table, so I scratched some of the paint. I had to do touchups on the bolts too, so I touched up the paint the next day…and then they were done.

I don’t actually have anywhere to put these chairs, so they are going back into storage, but thankfully this time not as a “project”. The reason I wanted to refinish them is because when I have guests for art afternoons or tea parties, I sometimes need extra chairs, so it will be nice to have these on standby.

They make a nice outdoor bistro set, perfect for consuming ice cream on a summer’s day. What do you know, it’s almost like they were designed for that!