Chiavari chairs have become the standard for elegant event seating, due in part to their sightings at large-scale events, such as the Oscars and high-profile celebrity weddings. In addition to their appearance, chiavari chairs are popular for weddings and events because of their stackability and narrow footprint. Special events around the globe request the handmade, wooden chairs, and after repeated use, the chairs need to be refreshed to maintain their elegant appearance.
Vision Furniture Chiavari Chairs — a family-owned and operated special events rental company based in Philadelphia — has been producing, renting and selling furniture since 2003. In 2004, the brother-sister duo of Anthony Tokarchyk and Sonya Feldner began experimenting with wooden chairs. With a growing demand worldwide, the company launched a chiavari chair business and soon began importing, manufacturing and selling chiavari chairs full-time to grow ChiavariChairs.com to a team of 35 people.
To keep their inventory of chiavari chairs in peak condition, Vision Furniture outfitted an empty workshop and storage area in its Philadelphia headquarters to create a 2,100-square-foot paint workshop to process, sand, paint and refinish chairs in one place. Completed in 2018, the new paint workshop features a 14-by-7-foot Open Face Paint Booth and a 20-by-7-foot Drying Room from Global Finishing Solutions (GFS).
Painting in multiple colors — gold, mahogany, black, white, silver and more — Vision Furniture is currently working through thousands of chairs to bring them up to the high-quality standards that chiavari chair renters and owners have come to expect.
“Our company is founded on offering quality service and products,” said Tokarchyk, “and our customers will be getting very well-maintained products — beautiful products for beautiful events.”
With a maximized footprint and expanded offerings, Vision Furniture has been putting through up to 500 chairs per day. The new GFS industrial painting and drying equipment has allowed Vision Furniture to create and build new products, as well as refinish existing chiavari chairs, barstools and other furniture, while delivering an overall better quality product to their customers.
“You can take a beat-up, 10-year-old chair and make it look great. The painting equipment is exceeding my expectations. And it’s so functional. Painting in there is a pleasure; it really is.”
The state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly paint room is a safe and efficient workshop for the chiavari chair manufacturer, capturing 99.9 percent of overspray particulates.
“We’ve created a system that’s safe for our employees and the environment, while also making sure we’re drying our products properly and effectively,” added Tokarchyk. “We had to work with a top company to make sure we got it right, and that’s why we went with Grapek Bates and Global Finishing Solutions. We are very happy with the technology and service from Grapek and GFS.”
