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Friday Slide Show: The Cesca Chair Project
21 November 2025
Nearly 50 years ago we bought four Cesca chairs made in Spain as our kitchen chairs. And since we didn't have a dining room, they doubled as dining room chairs too.
We liked them because they were chrome and fit right in with the chrome linoleum-topped kitchen table our great grandmother had once kept in her kitchen. It doubled as her dining room table because she didn't have a dining room either.
Our parents inherited it when she passed and put it in the garage where we kids would use it for our projects. And when we all grew up and there was no room for it any more, we took possession of it.
But it didn't have any chairs. So when we found the chrome Cesca chairs with cane backs and bottoms, we were sold.
There is a little known fact about Cesca cane chairs that we hasten to divulge. They have a weight limit. They are only designed to hold people who weigh under 180 lbs. In fact, we'd say 165 lbs.
So over the years, we've had to replace them. The first time, we replaced the backs and seats but twice after that we replaced the seats. Then we found out about the weight limit. But by then the most recent cane seats had lasted over 20 years.
When they go, though, they go.
And they had gone. You can wet the cane when it sags and it will tighten up as it dries but, well, they had gone. Ripping apart at the spline.
So we took the opportunity to look into dining room chairs at Ikea and Wayfair and all the other places you would look. But nobody had anything like the chrome Cescas.
The Cesca chair was designed in 1928 by the Hungarian-American architect and designer Marcel Breuer. So you may know it as a Breuer chair. Breuer had an adopted daughter named Francesca whose nickname was Cesca. Hence the Cesca chair. Which we find easier to spell than Breuer.
So once again we looked into repairing our Cescas.
We looked at a lot of YouTube videos to start with. Brave young soldiers who had found one and brought it home only to attempt a seat repair (which is why it was on the street to begin with). They pulled the spline out and bought new cane and soaked it overnight and tried to line it up on the frame and glue it in and it took days. Not hours, days.
And if they didn't watch their weight in the years ahead, it would all be for nothing.
We have always purchased our replacement seats online from Seats and Stools. For nearly 50 years. But we weren't going to order cane seats again. No sir.
To their credit, Seats and Stools had options. Vinyl padded seats instead of cane. And fabric seats, too.
Picking a color on the Web slowed down our enthusiasm. Sure, brown vinyl. But vinyl can be slippery against certain fabrics and if someone wears some metal spikes and studs, it could rip.
So we liked the idea of fabric. We went with a burgundy color. You won't slide on fabric and if anyone christens it with red wine, you won't be able to tell. If anyone wears spikes or studs, we'll make them leave them at the door with their shoes.
It took forever to get them. Was it two months? We ordered them Oct. 9 and they arrived Nov. 19. Let's call it six weeks. But that's because fabric seats are a special order. They've got to make them from scratch.
We let the box sit overnight to acclimate the wood to our climate (well, that's what we told ourselves so we could ignore the job one more day). But yesterday we opened the box and took a look. Gorgeous. Exactly what we wanted.
Our Spanish knock-offs do not have standardized screw holes in the frames for the seats. So we have to measure each old seat to see where we drilled the old holes and transfer that to the new seat. And double check it. And drill a pilot hole. Only so deep. And clean the frame. And align the frame to the seat and drop the screws in and tighten them. And test the chair, of course.
It took an hour and a half to do four chairs. But that's partly because we took some photos for today's slide show. Otherwise, you know, we'd have finished in 20 minutes, tops.
We sat in one last night for dinner. With no fear that exceeding 180 lbs. will destroy them.
