A while ago, I posted on my Instagram an amazing Craigslist find that Michael and I jumped on – six original Tolix A Chairs for $150 – Unheard of. The catch? They were rusted. And by rusted I mean extremely rusted. While a few spots of the original finish were still intact, most of it had either warped, completely lifted, or was all together gone.

We had one of two options: pay to get them sandblasted or roll up our sleeves and grab a wire brush. Needless to say we opted for the latter. We began with that wire brush and scraped off as much of the excess rust as possible. When the brush wasn’t lifting anymore rust, Michael grabbed a disc sander and went at them. This was much more effective on the seats and other flat surfaces, so we used sandpaper sheets on odd shaped areas like the legs.

We repeated this process on each chair until all of the lifted, bubbled rust was gone. When we had started this project, I had hoped that we would be able to at least somewhat restore the steel underneath the damage, but the corrosion went much deeper than we thought. We decided to settle on an ultra-distressed-chic look as a compromise. We figured that once we were comfortable with the idea of spending more money on them, we would take them to a professional. So, we finished with sanding and cleaned up the leftover orange residue with some WD40.

I’m obsessed with how they look with our new table. It’s an early 1900s French Louis XV style school desk that we refinished. Both the table and chair styles are antique French staples that juxtapose each other just enough. The industrial steel is a hard contrast to the soft lines of the Louis XV curved legs. The rustic finish of the chairs also adds another dimension to the setup, but they’ll look just as good when we decide to get them back to their original steel finish.

If you’re not into DIYing, here’s the original chair and some reproductions: