Hand Painted Furniture Built On Retired Skis
The mural goes on last. By then the skis have been stripped and sorted for color, the Douglas Fir frame is together, and the chair is already a chair. Then somebody in Manitou Springs sits down in front of it with a brush and a can of exterior oils and puts the Tetons across the seat back, or a September ridgeline, or a guitar player from 1968. That last step is the whole category.
Fine Art Chairs and Benches is where the painting leads. Every piece starts the way the rest of the shop starts, four to five pairs of retired skis for one Adirondack chair, at least three boards for a snowboard chair, all of it on a Douglas Fir base built here in Colorado. Then a painter works a mural directly across the topsheets and the edges in high quality exterior oil paint. Real brushwork, never a decal.
The subjects come from customers more often than from us. National parks, home mountains, Front Range red rock, moose and elk and one persistent Bigfoot, sugar skulls, columbines, northern lights, and portraits of whoever was on the record player in 1974. Nearly every design in here started as a phone call.
Grand Teton National Park
One of the more detailed pieces in the National Parks group. The painters work slowly through the rock faces and the light on the snowfields, because that skyline falls apart if you rush it.
Portrait tributes
Big hair, wild color, painted the way a 1968 concert poster would have done it. The artist is your choice. Rock, country, blues, and one very specific jazz drummer so far.
Murals that run across a set
Mystic Mountains painted across four chairs, so the ridgeline starts on the first seat back and finishes on the last. Sets of two and four both work this way.
How a mural actually gets painted
The skis get their base color first, laid down and leveled so the artwork has something honest to sit on. After that the painting runs back to front. Sky and haze go in first, ridgelines next, then trees and foreground detail last, carried straight across the gaps between skis so the scene reads as one picture instead of eight stripes. Curing takes real time, which is part of why a made to order piece runs two to four weeks.
All of it is high quality exterior oil paint. That means a mural chair can sit outside through a Colorado winter and still look like art in April, and it means nobody has to panic about a spilled drink. Fine art you are allowed to spill on.
Landscapes and places
This is the biggest group. Grand Teton, Glacier, the Maroon Bells at sunset, Garden of the Gods with Pikes Peak and the Manitou Incline climbing up the middle, Mystic Mountains in four seasons, Alpenglow forest, mountain lakes, and forest scenes in full color or grey scale. If your place is not on the shelf, describe it or send a photo and we paint that one instead. Most of the designs here exist because somebody did exactly that.
Portraits, tributes and the strange stuff
Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Doc Holiday, Wyatt Earp, Spock, a man and his dog, and sugar skulls both bearded and clean shaven. There is a throne built from layered stainless steel Volant skis that looks like it belongs in a dragon show. We have not turned down a subject yet, which probably says more about us than about the people asking.
Sets, benches, swings and wall panels
A mural does not have to stop at one chair. Matched sets of two and four carry a single scene across every piece, and side tables and benches get pulled into the same scene when they are part of the order. A single snowboard makes a bench, so snowboard bench murals get a wide uninterrupted canvas, which is why the Bigfoot and northern lights scenes tend to land there. Porch swings and lift benches are handcrafted replicas unless the product name says the piece is a genuine original. Wall art runs from small ski panels up to office murals at 96 inches, painted by the same hands.
The specs under the paint
- Adirondack ski chair, 45 inches tall by 36 inches deep by 32 inches wide, with some builds at 55 inches tall. Comfortable for people from 3 feet to 6 feet 10.
- Four to five pairs of retired skis per chair. A matched set of two takes eight to ten pairs, which is a lot of old gear kept out of a landfill.
- Snowboard chairs take at least three boards. A single board is enough for a bench or a coffee table.
- Douglas Fir base, built in Colorado.
- Cup holder made from a repurposed ski binding, which now grips a drink instead of a boot.
- 400 lb weight capacity. Sit down like you mean it.
- High quality exterior oil paint, colorful and weatherproof.
- 3 year hassle free warranty. Yup.
- Most chairs ship free to the lower 48.
- Rocker conversion is $75 more, on repurposed oak wine barrel slats.
- Made to order runs two to four weeks. Some pieces are ready to ship.
Murals are painted. Logos are not.
Worth being clear about, because it comes up on almost every business call. A mural is painted by hand in exterior oils, never a decal. A logo is a different job. A logo goes on as a logo decal floated onto a painted background, because a mark has to hold its exact shape and color and a brush is the wrong tool for that kind of precision. Aluminum appliques and plastic appliques are the other two routes, each priced differently, and the logo can sit on the front of the piece or on the back. Branded work is quoted on a call instead of listed.
Frequently asked questions
Is the artwork really painted by hand?
Yes. Every mural in this category is painted by a person with a brush, in high quality exterior oil paint, directly onto the skis and the frame. Never a decal. That is also why no two chairs come out perfectly identical, even when they carry the same design name.
Can you paint my mountain, my town or my photo?
That is most of what we do. Send a photo or describe the view and we will talk through what works on a seat back, since a chair is a tall narrow canvas and some scenes need to be recomposed to fit it. Portraits, pets, cabins, home resorts and trail maps have all been done. Call 303.775.7273 and we will quote your idea.
Will the mural hold up outside?
Exterior oil paint is built for it, and these chairs live on decks and porches across Colorado. Sun is harder on any painted surface than snow is, so a piece in hard afternoon glare holds its color longer with some shade. The 3 year hassle free warranty applies wherever you put it.
How long does a hand painted piece take?
Two to four weeks for most made to order work, because the base coat, the mural and the cure each need their own time. Detailed portraits and multi piece sets sit at the longer end. Some finished pieces are ready to ship right now, so if you are working against a birthday, tell us the date when you call and we will be honest about whether it is doable.
Can one mural run across a set of two or four chairs?
Yes, and it is one of the better things we build. The scene is composed across all the seat backs at once so the ridgeline continues from chair to chair when they are lined up. Sets can also be painted as four seasons of the same range, which is what the Four Seasons Mystic Mountains group does.
Are these meant for indoors or outdoors?
Both, and plenty of these end up inside. The paint and the build are weatherproof, but a detailed mural chair often gets bought as art first and seating second, so it lands next to a fireplace or in an entryway where people actually look at it. Nobody here will judge you for keeping the Tetons out of the weather.
