Chairs from here & there

The first time I saw mismatched dining chairs was when Italianni's opened in Greenbelt in 1996. Before that, all I had ever seen were meticulously coordinated formal dining sets. It rocked my world, and my 15 year-old self vowed to have mismatched dining chairs one day. 

Italianni's as a design influence sounds funny and a little bit horrific now that I think about it, but it's true. And it's also funny that I can now say a dream has come true, since we've amassed an eclectic little collection of dining chairs over the last month. 

The first two dining chairs we bought were a pair of vintage metal Tolix chairs from vintage/industrial warehouse Spoor 38. I had made up my mind to get vintage bistro chairs like these, but we could only afford the one pair, and they weren't in the best condition with large exposed screws and seat-less, thoroughly rusted bottoms. 

So last week's DIY project was new seats for the Tolix chairs. I traced the seat shapes onto some plywood and got Marlon to cut them out with a saw. Then I staple-gunned them with foam padding from Albert Cuypmarkt and floral-print upholstery fabric from Westermarkt. I was pretty happy with the results.

I like how the orange in the print picks up the little bits of rust and wear in each chair. 

Then last Friday, Marlon called me on his way home from work. "There are people throwing away chairs on the sidewalk... and some of them are kind of nice," he said. "Wanna come over and help me choose?" I was over there faster than you could say may pera sa basura!

My wonderful husband not only picked out a couple of nice chairs in decent condition, but he actually sat on them to prevent other sidewalk vultures from getting them. Plus, he dug up a plastic bag with five rolls of unused Laura Ashley lining papers and wallpapers. He knows me, this man!

One of the people rummaging through the chairs with us remarked, "If our mothers could only see us now!" I think my mother wouldn't mind. I hope. 

One of our finds was this wood and steel chair. It's surprisingly comfortable. 

It was probably some kind of old-school office chair. I'm thinking of painting the metal white...

... to go with this cafe chair. I used to see these in very old kopitiams in Singapore. 

Well, it's not a dining chair, but I just had to have it! This cute little wooden chair will soon be reborn in  a fresh new color, maybe a bright purple or sunny yellow. 

The two "found" chairs are by no means permanent, and will likely get rotated to other parts of the house in the future. But for now, they allow us to finally put the dining room to use and take our time to find and save up for better chairs. And they've helped me fulfill my Italianni's dream! Tee hee!