A Little Tough to Put Together, But great chairs when assembled.
I had a similar set of these chairs that were college hand/me/downs, in brown that was peeling to show the (shudder) avocado green underneath. As my own kid is out of college, I decided that I deserved a set that was newer than 1972. These look wonderful, and fit the design I wanted for our new kitchen.
I have boatloads of experience putting together furniture, including the stuff from that giant Scandinavian chain, so I figured this would be a no brainer.
Hah.
I spent 45 minutes on one chair, trying to hold the screws, washers and the chair tabs together, and I still got it wrong! I noticed that the screws seemed to be made of unusually soft metal, as I had stripped the heads on many of them with a hand held Allen wrench and no attempts at tightening the screws.
I decided to make my life a lot easier with a few things, first of all, bringing the old screws to the hardware store and exchanging them for better quality screws. I also bought a thing called loc/tite, which is supposed to keep screws from coming undone. I had an epiphany when I went back to hold all that little bits in place while I screwed the legs on: there is no law saying I cannot tape the things in place so I have both hands free to support the chair and screw in the bits. The tape gave me the added benefit of helping me make sure all the tabs on the chair leg assembly were in the correct place. I used plain old office tape, the stuff you might use for gift wrapping, and tore it away when the legs were in place. I did poke a small hole in the tape just before I screwed in/the screw, and squirted in a tiny amount of loc/tight as added insurance.
It has been five months of daily use, and the hardware is all in place. My only recommendation beyond getting more durable screws would be to think long and hard before buying white chairs. I end up cleaning these things on a daily basis, as they show EVERYTHING. I find handprints on them from people who supposedly have clean hands. The dog leaves little footprints on the chair before I see him and boot him off. Our Thanksgiving dinner left souvenirs on every single chair. Cleaning them is easy, just spray with cleanser and scrub off the stains with a rag, but its just one more thing to do.
Im glad that the green with brown paint were demoted to garage use, but they needed a quick swipe to clean them about three times a year. The new white ones need a lot more attention, but they look aming in my kitchen.
A Little Tough to Put Together, But great chairs when assembled.
I had a similar set of these chairs that were college hand/me/downs, in brown that was peeling to show the (shudder) avocado green underneath. As my own kid is out of college, I decided that I deserved a set that was newer than 1972. These look wonderful, and fit the design I wanted for our new kitchen. I have boatloads of experience putting together furniture, including the stuff from that giant Scandinavian chain, so I figured this would be a no brainer. Hah. I spent 45 minutes on one chair, trying to hold the screws, washers and the chair tabs together, and I still got it wrong! I noticed that the screws seemed to be made of unusually soft metal, as I had stripped the heads on many of them with a hand held Allen wrench and no attempts at tightening the screws. I decided to make my life a lot easier with a few things, first of all, bringing the old screws to the hardware store and exchanging them for better quality screws. I also bought a thing called loc/tite, which is supposed to keep screws from coming undone. I had an epiphany when I went back to hold all that little bits in place while I screwed the legs on: there is no law saying I cannot tape the things in place so I have both hands free to support the chair and screw in the bits. The tape gave me the added benefit of helping me make sure all the tabs on the chair leg assembly were in the correct place. I used plain old office tape, the stuff you might use for gift wrapping, and tore it away when the legs were in place. I did poke a small hole in the tape just before I screwed in/the screw, and squirted in a tiny amount of loc/tight as added insurance. It has been five months of daily use, and the hardware is all in place. My only recommendation beyond getting more durable screws would be to think long and hard before buying white chairs. I end up cleaning these things on a daily basis, as they show EVERYTHING. I find handprints on them from people who supposedly have clean hands. The dog leaves little footprints on the chair before I see him and boot him off. Our Thanksgiving dinner left souvenirs on every single chair. Cleaning them is easy, just spray with cleanser and scrub off the stains with a rag, but its just one more thing to do. Im glad that the green with brown paint were demoted to garage use, but they needed a quick swipe to clean them about three times a year. The new white ones need a lot more attention, but they look aming in my kitchen.