A week or so ago, my mom and I reupholstered my desk chair in a beautiful dark red velvet fabric. The chair started off looking like this after I bought it and added the casters to turn it from a dining chair to a rolling desk chair…
After we reupholstered it, it looked like this. The fabric was so gorgeous, but those legs just weren’t working for me.
After going to all that trouble to reupholster the chair, and after ending up with such a beautiful result, I just couldn’t stand those legs. I didn’t really like them in the first place, but they were tolerable with the black fabric. With the dark red velvet, they seemed so out of place. So I searched online for a replacement wood swivel base for a desk chair.
Well, those things are very hard to find, and the couple of sources I did find were EXPENSIVE! One source sold the parts separately, and if I added everything up, it would have come to several hundred dollars. Of course, you can buy the plastic ones cheap on Amazon, but I had my heart set on a dark wood for my dark red velvet chair.
So I started keeping an eye on Facebook Marketplace for a desk chair with a wood swivel base with casters. After several days with no luck, I almost settled for one that was kind of mid-century (straight lines) in style. It wasn’t what I wanted, but at least it was wood. But then…JACKPOT! A woman in a neighboring town posted several desk chairs with wood bases, and about three of them looked exactly like what I was looking for.
My mom and I had planned to go yesterday afternoon to look at them, but then Matt ended up having a horrible day, and I couldn’t leave him alone. So my mom asked a friend to go with her, and they headed to that neighboring town to pick up a chair with a swivel base. My mom said it was a very interesting place. The woman selling them has basically filled her back yard and her three-car garage with stuff. Stuff piled upon stuff, filled with more stuff, and buried under even more stuff. On the phone, the woman described it as “a hoarder’s place” where she has to dig and climb for stuff. I thought she was probably exaggerating, but according to my mom, the woman is evidently very self-aware and precise in her description.
It was quite the adventure, but she came away with this beauty for $65.
The chair was in great condition, but covered in a few layers of dust. The base swivels, can adjust up and down, and also tilts.
The base was attached to the chair with just four large screws.
I found this interesting little metal stamp on the chair showing that it’s by The Marble & Shattuck Chair Company in Cleveland.
I googled that out of curiosity, and something tells me that I got this chair at quite a steal. I don’t know anything about antiques at all, but I think if this chair were cleaned up and polished, it could actually be sold for a whole lot more than the $65 that I paid for it.
I won’t be throwing any part of this chair away. But for now, I only needed the base. I removed those four large screws holding it to the chair seat, and then started cleaning.
The metal on the base is also stamped with the company name and location.
It looked really nice after I got it all cleaned up! I think it could use a good oiling or waxing. The wood was gorgeous when it was damp, but it had a hazy look when it dried. But I didn’t have any good oil or wax on hand that I could use on it, so I left it like this for now.
I don’t know what any of these markings mean, but I took pictures of them in case some of you antiques experts may know.
This is what was stamped on the bottom of the seat.
Anyway, I needed to figure out how to attach this to my chair. As you can see, this base is quite a bit taller than the original legs that were on the chair.
So I needed this base to be recessed in the frame of the chair seat as much as possible. I flipped the chair onto its back so that the seat frame was exposed, and then I cut and attached some scrap lumber, cut to about 1 inch square on my table saw. I placed these pieces as far to the top of the frame as possible, attaching them with wood glue and 16-gauge nails.
Here’s what it looked like with all four of them attached.
Next, I used brown craft paper to make a template that I could use to cut out plywood. I just folded and taped it with packing tape until it fit. My sweet Cooper was the perfect supervisor.
And then using that template, I traced the pattern onto a scrap piece of plywood, cut it out with my jigsaw, and then nailed it to those pieces I had previously attached to the frame.
I had to allow for these metal pieces that protrude past the top of the base…
So after taking lots of measurements and marking where the base would attach, where the screwholes would go, and where those two metal pieces would land, I used a 1 3/8-inch spade bit to drill out holes for those protruding metal pieces.
Then I drilled four pilot holes and attached the base with the four original screws.
And then I turned the chair right side up for the moment of truth. I was so excited to see how it looked!!!
It’s everything I had hoped for!! Here are a few different views without commentary.
Isn’t that PERFECT?! I just love how it turned out! So here’s one more view of the chair before…
And here it is now with its new fabric and new base.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.