Home Owner Adventures: The Adirondack Project

New chairs :)

As the outdoors begin growing things and it has gotten less cold outside (yes, I am already acclimated to the weather here!), I have begun venturing outside to make my backyard a fun place to be. My parents have gotten me some lovely patio furniture that I have been working on putting together and will have finished this weekend.

A friend of mine from work who is working on moving has been getting rid of things that will not fit in her new home and gave me a set of lovely Adirondack chairs. As you can see, they need a little TLC. Nothing I can't handle though! Now, as I say that, this is the first time I have done a project like this.

Safety first!

So far, I have wiped the dirt off the chairs and taken one chair apart almost completely.  I have a couple of bolts that seem to be stripped and will have to find new ones. Once the pieces were separated, I began sanding each individual piece to strip the paint and mold. So far, they are coming pretty clean. I did buy new screws for the pieces of wood that will not rust, a type of decking screw.

Top planks sanded

What I have learned so far from this project:

• My elbow can handle only so much sanding a day. 
• Hand Sanders are very difficult to use, especially when the piece of sandpaper keeps coming out from its little tab that is holding it in. 
• Take out more than one bolt to see if they are threaded into the wood or not. Just because it was hard to get one out does not mean that they are threaded.
• It is really hard to find metric bolts

Stay tuned for the finished product over the next couple weeks.