bow back children's chairs

The chair on the right in the picture below is new to our house. I spotted it when I went into the shop recommended to me as a place I could get the arm chair that belonged to my grandmother restored.
I was elated to find it because it so nearly matches the smaller chair to its left.

That one has a peculiar history in our household. It came from a country church in Choudrant, Louisiana in the early 1980's. It was among the furnishings sold at auction. I was thrilled to had acquired it for something like ten dollars. The Hub, upon seeing it, was immediately less excited.
When the chair first was ours, it was covered in a number of coats of paint. I cannot tell you the number for sure. I just know it was a lot.

For the first few coats, the Hub was good natured about scraping and brushing. Over time, though, the process got old. At some point, he wanted to pitch the whole project. I had gotten a glimpse at the wood beneath all those layers and couldn't bear the thought of not us finishing.
We didn't learn that about a place nearby where furniture could be dipped into a vat and stripped fairly easily.
Our do-it-yourself method was not the fun and easy couple's project I had envision. Quite the contrary, in fact. For years, we referred to the little chair as the "divorce" chair, since we believed ourselves to have come pretty close to calling it quits before all the paint was finally removed and the pretty wood beneath restored.
This new chair did not require any work at all from us, save carrying it in from the car. Had it not been such good condition, I would have passed it over. Though the result was a happy one, the process was not. I have not forgotten that lesson.