This one took us a couple weekends (mostly to wait for the stain to dry) but was worth it. We refreshed our inexpensive bar stools by replacing the seats and refinishing the bases.
Here’s what we started with:
First thing first, about 3 days before we started disassembling the stools, I mixed up some homemade natural stain. This stuff is awesome and there are so many color options. To get the medium brown/gray color desired, I mixed approximately 2 cups white vinegar, 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar, and 1/4 cup cocoa and added one half of a piece of steel wool to “marinate” in the garage. The longer it marinates, the more gray you’ll have in the final stain. The vinegar and wool are a bit “stinky” but nowhere near as bad as some of the other store-bought stains. And a fraction of the cost. It’s also fun to test different mixtures. I only use this method for staining wood, now.
This steel wool is the best I’ve found to prevent the “yellowing” that occurs with other clear or light stain:
After the stain was ready, we cleaned the bases and removed the seats with a screwdriver. Then we set about sketching out the new seat outlines and cut down the plywood with the table saw. Once that was done, we glued the two layers together with this glue:
and clamped them with these clamps:
Once the glue set (about 24 hours), we set about cutting the corners with our trusty band saw, similar to this one:
We used our belt sander to sand the edges:
And lightly filled the holes with wood putty:
The spray paint was a nice matte black
and only took one coat using this nozzle attachment (makes for much more control and even spraying):
Once the paint and stain dried, we used a light orange oil mixture to seal the stain and attached the seats back to the bases and we were done!
