Vintage Chair in Buttermilk Cream

Vintage Art Deco China Cabinet Restore

This Art Deco waterfall china cabinet, circa 1940, had seen better days. Tucked away in a shop and used as a storage shelf, it was in rough shape. A family member, inspired by a photo featuring rich navy tones and warm wood, wanted to see it brought back to life. With that vision in mind, I gave the piece the repairs and makeover it deserved — blending classic navy with warm wood to honor both its history and a fresh new style.

How about a vintage chair updated to a soft buttercream yellow and natural oiled wood combo? Do you like that?

Here is the chair in its original state

All my wood pieces get scrubbed well with warm soapy water and a scrub brush then rinsed well and left to dry completely.

This vintage cutie had loose chair back spindles so I flipped it over and drilled out the wedges on both corner spindles.

This allowed for all to be removed, sanded well on each end to remove any former glue. The seat top and chair back were power sanded to the bare wood.

Removing the back made this so much easier to get the seat top perfectly smoothed down.

The base and spindles were painted in Fusion Mineral Paint 's buttermilk cream; a soft buttery yellow. I have used this beautiful color before on this vintage magazine rack.

My go to for spindle painting is using a cardboard box which allows all sides to be painted and dry without touching anything.

Natural wood is HUGE right now so I chose to just use tung oil on this solid wood chair seat and back. See how the wood sucks up that oil above?

Three coats were applied allowing it to dry overnight between coats.

Two coats of buttermilk cream were applied to spindles and chair base.

Then all were distressed then Fusion Mineral Paint espresso wax was applied to catch in the details to enhance the aged look.

It was now time to reglue each spindle top and bottom. It is best to use a paint brush to apply the glue and move quickly. Once all are in place and the chair top on too, it was left to dry.