Decorative Weaving Colors

When this cute little stool came to us it had a very similar weaving pattern, but it was so faded out that the color was hardly visible.  So we removed the old weaving and then stripped the wood down so that it was bare.  It then needed to be prep sanded and stained.   The stool has a beautiful, rich looking water based Brown Cherry Stain, with a Semi Gloss finish over the top.  Gorgeous!   Then it was time for the weaving.  While we can use almost any pattern or material at our shop, this particular client wanted to keep the weaving looking like the original.  So to do that, we used a Flat Reed as the material.  We colored some of it with a dark green dye.  Flat reed takes color very well, much better then most of the other weaving materials, which makes it ideal for a multi color pattern like this one.   Our weaver then used a herringbone pattern, weaving one direction with natural colored reed, an the other direction with the dyed reed.  The completed result is a very cool looking bench that should look beautiful and be functional for many years to come.

Overcoming the Power of an Old Berry Stain

We have a few pieces in, from different customers, which offer us a unique challenge.  These pieces came in to be stripped of their old finish, and have a new finish applied.  All of  these items went through the stripping process, after which we discovered that part of the original staining work would linger.  You see, these pieces were colored with a dye, that could not be removed in stripping.

This dye is a Berry based stain and penetrates the wood fibers to permanently color them, as opposed to a pigment color, which we would use, that sits on top of the wood.  You can find this dye used in old furniture as well as modern, so we never know when it will pop up.

 Sometimes this kind of dye is used on a lighter colored wood, such as Poplar to make it match, say a Mahogany wood, then a pigment stain can be applied over both, and it will look like they are the same kind of wood.

In the case of this Piano Stool, we were able to remove some of the color during the prep sanding process, which left the red in the crevices.  Instead of letting this be a problem, we used the red as a natural 'highlighting', to give the stool some extra character.  Then we used a medium Cherry dye which helped to even the color out without making the stool to dark.  Of course the stool has our super earth friendly Water Based Finish over all of that!

How do you think the stool looks?  Have you ever had to deal with a dye stain like this?  If so, what did you end up doing with the new  finish?  We would love to hear, in the comments below.