A Gilded Children's Chair

We do all kinds of large, complecated jobs here at the shop, but we also do little ones fairly often.  This job is not only little, but the furniture is little to!

This gilded chair is just the right size for a child.  We see children's rocking chairs quite frequently but chairs are a bit more rare.

As you can see, the chair came to us in multiple pieces.  Clearly some child had a little to much fun during playtime.  But we used our 'magical' skills and put this chair back together so that another child may have a golden throne to sit on.

Besides the obvious structural damage,  there were several woven strands on the seat which had broken.  We patched these strands and then re-guilded all of the repaired areas on the chair.  It came out very well.  All of the repairs blend in,  and the chair still has and old, well loved appearance.

Restoration of Gilt Mirror Frame

 This beautiful mirror frame came into our shop with considerable damage.  There were large obvious areas,  as well as minor breaks and chips all over.  Someone had clearly attempted to repair it,  and then realized that they just weren't up to the job.  So they brought it to us!  What a wise decision!

I am going to show you a series of photos, each of a different area of significant damage.  In this first photo you can see where a leaf tip had been broken off.  When it came to us, someone had used bondo or putty and had tried to reshape it,  giving it a sort of 'pine cone' look.  That clearly did not match the rest of the mirror.  Our first task, with any of the repairs on this frame, was to create a solid, accurately shaped repair with bondo.   This shaping takes a good eye for what would have originally been there,  as well as good hands to recreate it with tools.

 The next task once all the bondo work and carving was dry and set, was to color the repaired areas.   With older frames, the traditional way of decorating was to apply a red oxide base under the gold leaf.  This red gave the leaf a brightness and brilliance.  Without the bright red color, the gold leaf would have ended up a bit more pale or washed out.  We re-created that by using a liquid shellac and red oxide powders directly over the bondo.






The next step, after the red oxide is to re-create the gold leaf.  Since this mirror used a gilding paste as a 'faux' leaf,  we did the same.  We can recreate any different shade of gold, which is pretty important when restoring old pieces such as this.  The paste was applied by hand over the red.

The final step in the restoration of this mirror was to 'antique' the gilt paste on the areas we repaired.  I would love to tell you more about this step, really I would.  But....  I just can't.  That would be like giving away a secret recipe, or the location of a buried treasure. I just can't do it.  But,  if you think this mirror looks as gorgeous as I do,  you are welcome to bring your mirror in.  We will work all our magic, and even use the secret sauce,  if the job requires it!

Antique Mirror Frame Gets A New Life

 This lovely old mirror frame has quite a history.  Our customer told us a story of growing up on a farm in the mid-west 75 years ago.  This mirror hung on the back porch where the field hands would come in for their lunch break.  Before they went inside

 to eat they would wash their face and hands and then check their appearance in this mirror.  It is hard to imagine such a lovely mirror hanging on the outside porch, but apparently it was already old at the time so the new 'nice' mirrors were inside!

When we took over the care of this mirror, there were little bits of decoration missing all over the frame.   Petals had disappeared and banding was broken off.      We began our work by filling in those missing pieces with a putty like material.  Once the material hardened, our craftsman carved it to match the rest of the frame.

The final step in the process was to hand paint all of the new areas so that the repairs disappeared.  This is work for an artist, and fortunately, we have an artist here at the shop.  He was able to disguise the repaired areas,  but still retain the old worn appearance of the frame.   The original glass mirror was then put back into its frame, and our customer came and picked it up.  She was delighted with the work.   That makes us just so happy.  The frame she grew up with was back in good repair,  looking beautiful, but still had evidence of the many years it had graced her home.  We call that a successful job.

A Drum Table That Got Some Luvin'

 This Duncan-Phyfe drum style table came to us as part of a large collection.   This table has a unique rotating base and false drawers.  We see a lot of Duncan-Phyfe, but this is the first time we have seen this feature.  The table's owner had just inherited her mother's estate and the furniture was all high quality, but badly in need of  some restoration.  We have done our best to bring her pieces back to life.

We started out by stripping the old worn out finish off of the piece.  The old leather top had stiffened and the gilding had turned to black.  We knew we would be replacing it, so we weren't worried about it during the stripping.    When we replace leather, each piece is cut to order, so our client gets to choose the color and the gilding pattern.  It then arrives at our shop already in the basic shape, with the gilding exactly the right size. This particular leather is called 'Oxblood' and has two different gilding patters around the edge.  Prior to attaching the leather, our craftsmen have to treat the wood surface to ensure that it is perfectly smooth.  We can then glue the leather on, and trim any excess.

The finished result of the new leather and the beautiful new water based stain and finish is just gorgeous.  The stain on this table is custom 1/2 Teak 1/2 Brown Cherry with a Gloss sheen finish over top.  The wood grain on the false drawers and around the leather really pops with this treatment.   With this restoration that we have done,  our client should be able to enjoy her furniture for many many years, and pass them along so that someone else can inherit them one day.

New Gilding on a Refurbished Coffee Table

 This is something we don't talk about all that often on this blog,  Gilding.  I suppose that is because we don't to it all that often!  This coffee table belongs to a set with an end table and two lamp tables.  This one is the only one with gilding though, so it got some special treatment.  I don't know if you can see very well from this first picture,  but the gilding has turned yellowish and is peeling off all over the place.  


After we refurbished the 4 pieces from the set, we applied a gilding paste to the accents on the carved decorations.  The paste is made out of metals of different colors that resemble various precious metals.  So this isn't real gold on the table, no guests will  be make a profit by flaking it off!  But it looks pretty good doesn't it?

The craft of gold leaf gilding in which leafs of gold are applied to objects for ornamentation, goes back over 4,000 years to Northern Africa where gold foil was applied to wood to give the appearance of being made of solid gold. Some of the finest gilding, however, took place in early 18^th century France when Louis XIV desired to show his power through the gilt works of his time, establishing France’s leadership in the decorative arts.