It seems that everyone and their dog is trying is get their hands on vintage Eames, Herman Miller, and Knoll just to name a few. So with my slim budget I have to find the busted, stained and decrepit pieces in hopes to rejuvenate them. This pair of Eames DCM chairs were purchased at different times so they are not a matching pair and they have both had some poorly done back surgery. Click “READ MORE” to see step by step on how I brought these chairs back to life.

The one on the right already had the clear coat sanded off. The clear coat on the left one was already flaking off.


The shock mounts on both chairs were hard and cracked.


I disassembled the chairs and focused on the frames. I read somewhere that vinegar and tin foil worked wonders on chrome. It worked really well as the frames came out pretty new looking.




Next was to remove the cracked hard shock mounts. It was fairly simple, get a chisel or something similar and tap it with a hammer close to the wood and they just popped right off.




The mounts on the back are recessed into the wood a bit so I took a Dremel tool and cleaned out the area.




Now that the shock mounts were all removed I obviously had to replace them. I found specialkproducts, a seller on eBay that has after market shock mounts. They have a package just for these chairs that have the smaller screw mount on the bottom.


I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the shock mounts from specialkproducts. The instructions were very simple and I had no problems mounting them to the chair. One trick I learned in the mounting processes with making sure the mounts line up with the holes in the metal frame is to screw the unmounted/unglued mounts to the metal frame first, set the seat or back on, then trace with a pencil, they should line up perfect when you actually glue the mounts on.


I had to sand the old clear coat off the one chair as is was flaking off anyway. I love the look of old worn wood but I came to the decision that these needed to be refinished.


The old wood was very thirsty.


Another picture of the mounts. I added the washers in the front to raise it just a hair so that the end of the center bar did not make contact with the wood seat.


The bolts I used to remount the backs were from my local big box store. I really did not like that they looked sooo shiny and new. I spray painted the heads with brown paint and then sanded them down, this left a darker color around the raise number and markings on the top of the bolts. I then rubbed a dark brown shoe polish on them. Sorry the picture isn’t to detailed on this.

The finished chairs:

What do you think? I think they turned out pretty nice.

Links for the shock mounts:
http://myworld.ebay.com/specialkproducts/
http://stores.ebay.com/specialkproducts

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