Vintage Metal Lawn Chairs

My husband and I are flea market junkies.  We love perusing rows and rows of forgotten, broken down, rusty, furniture, light fixtures, tools, you name it!  We find joy in dreaming about how it was once used and how we might repurpose it and make it beautiful and useful again.  

{{Reduce*Reuse*Recycle right?!}}

One of our favorite times of year is fall.  The weather cools down, from the blazing Nebraska humidity.  The Huskers are on the field in Lincoln once again.  Our anniversary rolls around on September 9th, reminding us why we fell in love all those years ago.... but our favorite fall activity is the Junk Jaunt!

The third weekend each September, Nebraska's Junk Jaunt is held.  It is 500 miles and three days of garage sales and vintage and antique gluttony from sun-up to sun-down.  

Towns along Nebraska state highways 2, 11 and 92 are represented with many towns in between.

Below is a map of the Junk Jaunt route.  Each town, highlighted along the red path, hosts sales as well as all the towns in the middle of the loop. 

 

From the Junk Jaunt website, Junk Jaunt is described in this way:

"Garage sale regulars call themselves “Junkers” and a “Jaunt” is a sprint or short run.  Thus, you could say it is ‘running for the junk’.  

Nebraska’s JUNK JAUNT® is nearly 500 miles of garage sales, collectibles, antiques, vintage, gastric delights and just plain fun.

It began in 2004 with about 75 vendors and 1,000 shoppers. In 2011 and 2012, license plate surveys and guest books told us that 20,000 people attended from 34 states (including Hawaii), several Canadians provinces and even a few foreign visitors.    

We find that people are inventive in their reasons for shopping. Some use the JUNK JAUNT® as a Mother & Daughter weekend, Father & Son, Sisters’ outings or fun excursions during a Family Reunion.  Some use it as a celebration for having ”maintained weight loss”, while other groups had a contest to see who could get the best buy of the day or who had made the ugliest purchase of the day. 

As it says in our MOTTO: “You are limited only by your imagination and the law”."

We hop in our red Ford truck early Friday morning, the first day of Junk Jaunt and head out.  We stop for coffee and with our Junk Jaunt shopper guide in hand we make our way to as many stops as we can until we run out of daylight.  Purchasing a Junk Jaunt Shopper Guide is a necessity!  It is a book that lists all the sales each town is having.  Individual vendors names, addresses and items up for grabs are listed.  It saves us so much time as we are on the hunt to check our desired items off our list.  We highlight the sales we definitely want to stop at so we make sure not to miss them and hit many others along the way! 

 Some years we have made it a three day event, staying in little motels along the 500 mile route.  Other years we have just gone out for a day or two, laying our heads on our pillows at home each evening to rest up for the next days' activities.  No matter how long we "jaunt" we always return with a truck full of treasures.

One of my very favorite JJ purchases ever was this set of vintage metal lawn chairs. 

  

As I mentioned, I usually make a list of things I'd like to find, before we head out and these chairs were on my list two years ago.  I didn't know what they were called but I had seen them various places painted really fun, vibrant colors and loved them!   After a little research I learned that they are referred to as "tulip" or "clamshell" chairs and they are from the 1950s.  (Don't they have a great name?!  No wonder I love them!)  These three beauties took me all weekend to find.  I picked them up individually, at different sales along the Junk Jaunt route.  I love that they are mismatched.  I've had them stored, since I bought them, trying to decide how to paint them.  I have narrowed it down to two choices but I think that blue ombre, in the aqua family is the way to go!  Ombre is a term basically meaning varying shades of the same color.

Here are a few of my inspiration photos from Google images:

         

Adorable, right?!

My second choice is to paint them all the same color, since they are all a slightly different shaped chair.  

If I go that route I think a really sparkly gold would be perfect.  So pretty! 

        

{{I am seriously in LOVE with that moose head from White Faux Taxidermy.  

I think it may need a home right over my desk!}}  

So, there you have it.  My dilemma.  Both would go great with our outdoor space so it is a hard decision!  

A friend even suggested one gold and two ombre.... hmmm... I kind of like that idea too!

I have a little time to think about it.  My grinder and I have plans to spend a couple days together, later this week, grinding 50+ years of gunk and old paint off of them and then it will be painting time!   

I can't wait to see how they turn out.

What do you think?  Which would you choose?  Have you ever painted outdoor furniture before?  Do you have any tips or tricks you'd like to share with me? 

I hope you come back to see the finished results.

Until then..... Have a lovely day!