International Concepts Set of Two Cosmo Chairs

This chair is sturdy and beautiful. Please pay attention if you are planning to stain the chairs. Even though they are pre-sanded and feel smooth to the touch, you MUST sand the chairs. The pores need to be reopened because Parawood is extremely hard and doesn't absorb the stain easily. There are also finite amounts of glue deposited from the construction process that will be invisible to you until you start staining. If you don't pre-sand you'll be horrified to discover that the stain isn't taking in certain spots. Glue residue is normal and not really a sign of poor construction. These are the exact same chairs that you can purchase pre-finished in popular furniture stores like Pier One and World Market. Parawood comes from rubber trees. The large pores in the wood are where the latex is secreted. Minwax oil stain, like I used, will be absorbed into those large pores and will penetrate more densely around them because the stain essentially pools up in the pores. I thought I was being smart by pretreating with wood conditioner but that actually made it worse. The oily preconditioner pooled up in the pores, exacerbating the problem. The super hard wood is a both a pro and a con. The wood is extremely durable, but the combination of extra hard wood and large pores means that the stain will absorb unevenly. If you are planning to stain the chairs a light color, I don't think you'll notice this at all. If you are going for a dark color, you definitely will. If I had a do-over, I would do thing differently. 1. SAND the wood, vacuum, and wipe with a tack cloth. 2. Do NOT precondition. 3. Use a gel-stain. Rather than leaving the stain on very long hoping for more absorption, I would actually wipe quickly after staining to avoid the darkening/spotting around the pores. Then repeat the staining process if a darker shade is desired. 4. Apply your choice of poly. I did two coats of water based poly and it worked perfectly. I still love the way my chairs turned out but I had some stress along the way because I I didn't have the advantage of experience with this type of wood. If you are planning to paint them, just prime, paint, and poly. They'll be gorgeous.