Doggie Chew Toy Rocking chair

The doggie who lived in this house had such a good time with this rocking chair!  The pup must have have had some sore teeth because he used the wood on this chair as a chew toy!  When it was brought to us it had gnawed areas all over along with scratches over most of it's platform base.

The first step in repairing this rocking chair was to fill in all the areas where the wood was chewed away.  We did this with an epoxy putty.  This putty comes in several shades and we chose one that was the closest to the shade of the chair.  Once the putty dried it could then be sanded to blend in shape with the wood around it.

The next step was to 'camouflage' all of the chewed and scratched areas to make them disappear.  Once again, our touchup man came to the rescue. With all his brushes, spray cans, powders and pigments he was able to essentially paint in a woodgrain to match the rest of the rocker.  Looking at this rocker now, one would never know that it had been the victim of a canine dental emergency.   Take note all you puppy owners out there,  once your furry friend is done with your furniture, take it to us and we will help it to look good as new again!

 

 Just in case you look at this chair and are confused when I say 'rocker', this particular design is known as a 'platform rocker'.  It has a stationary base (platform)  and chair that is attached by springs which are hidden from view on the inner side of the base.   While rocking chairs themselves are at least as old as Benjamin Franklin,  platform style rockers are a bit younger, first being introduced around 1870.

Classic Hitchcock Chairs get a Touchup

These beautiful  'Hitchcock' style chairs have received much loving use over the years.  As a result the black paint on the arm and top rails has worn off from handling, and there are 'table rub' marks on the spindles of the side chairs.  To repair these chairs, we went to our color touchup man with the magic fingers.  All the worn areas needed some delicate sanding with very fine grit paper to finesse the contours and make sure the new color could easily blend with the old.  They then received new color to the worn areas and a clear top coat.

The chairs now look good as new.  You would  never know that they had been worn looking.  Our guy in the shop did a great job.

Hitchcock chairs have been around for quite some time and they are still very similar to what they looked like originally.  In 1818 Lambert Hitchcock started the Hitchcock Chair Company, his vision was to create beautiful affordable mass produced chairs.  They also used a relatively new idea,  instead of hand painting a design on the back of each chair,  he used the easier technique of stenciling.  This stenciling gives the Hitchcock chair a unique and very distinguishable look.  By 1820 his company was producing over 15,000 chairs a year!  

While the Hitchcock Chair Company has changed hands a few times,  the company is still in existence and are still making this beautiful classic design.  

Our Color Wizard Strikes Again

Often, items come to us that are not broken, do not need to be refinished, or some other major work.  They simply have a dent, gouge, scrape or ding on their beautiful surface.  Fortunately we have the man for the job.  He is a color wizard and can make imperfections disappear.  After smoothing the dent with various fillers, the color touchup began.  Three different colors were used to achieve that red you see on the table.  Our Color Wizard used  red, a canary yellow and a white, it is amazing to me how people can see in their mind what colors make up another color.  I always end up with a whole bunch of dud colors before finding the right one.  I suppose that is what makes our Wizard so good!   Once that red is dry a rich gold will be applied over it.  You will still be able to see some red underneath, which is part of what makes the effect on this table so cool.

Do you have something with a dent that you have been wishing you could get fixed?  Well now you know where to take it.  Bring it in, we will be waiting for you!