Stool Sample

This post has nothing to do with excrement. Although it shares the same color. Are you disappointed? It does however document my first time completely refinishing a piece of wood furniture. Actually any furniture.

These were given to me by a friend who had given up on them. I took this as a challenge and also felt too guilty to send them to a landfill. And knew that throwing them in the firepit would result in all kinds of colorful stinky fumes. And they were structurally sound and were solid wood (can you say NOT laminate? I guess I've been at Ikea too much?).

Before

After removing the gray paint, and the red paint beneath that

This was the worst laborious process, using chemicals, power tools, and elbow grease to strip. Multiply all those said processes by a jillion and enough cursing that made me wonder what I was in a past life. And then giving up for a few weeks.

After first coat of stain

After second coat of stain

The end result
(After two coats of polyurethane, new upholstery, and reattached seat)

Now the only question is, what to do with them? They're too short for our bar counter, and too high for our dining table (this was also a reason for lots of cursing). Does anyone need this? Want this? Have something to trade? Did I waste countless hours of my life on this? What is wrong with me?