Chair Mending

Our dining room furniture is hand-me-down, from Tom's grandmother. The gate leg table folds down to seat two and extends, with leaves, to seat twelve. We refinished the table top many years ago. We have a set of the original ladder back chairs, plus some from his mother's set, and more that we picked up at an antique store a long time ago. Some of these have been living in the attic, some are in the dining room, and some serve as desk chairs around the house. The seats are paper caning, and many of the chair seats were falling apart. Tom has been going to redo them for years. This is the year. He has to concentrate to remember the pattern, over, around and under, this corner then that corner, while keeping tension on the cording. It's hard on his arthritic hands. He's also re gluing loose joints and cleaning up the finish with furniture oil. He has a kerosene heater in the garage to keep him warm. Here are the first two he did. He finished another one today. He'll probably put some kind of finish on the seats. He just has to read up on what to use, or go talk to the guys at the woodworking store. They are his new buddies.