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.

Machine Carved Platform Rocker

 We have completed work on this platform rocker,  and just in time to!  Its owner is having a baby any day now and will be putting this beautiful chair to use right away.  Fortunately,  the water based stains and finishes we use have almost no VOCs, zero fumes, and are quite safe for use on furniture than infants will be around.

As I was looking at this chair and taking photographs I noticed an interesting clue that tells us this is a mass produced rocking chair.  If you look at the carved panels (of which there are 3 on this rocking chair) you will notice that instead of being a balanced carving with a clear center and mirroring sides,  it seems to be a replicating pattern that could have easily been carved over and over by a machine.  But the real kicker is that the replicating pattern isn't  centered on the chair.  It looks as though a long strip of wood was machine carved, chopped into pieces and then bent into shape.

While this is a fine method for making furniture, and you end up with a sturdy piece with beautiful carving for a lower price, it would be better if the maker had at least paid a little attention to detail and centered the pattern in each chair.  If the middle of the three flowers on this rocking chair was one inch to the left, I probably would never have noticed the obvious mass production clue.  Or, if a more subtle carving design was chosen, that didn't have such distinct parts, then centering the design would not have been an issue at all.

Fabricating a Carved Settee Leg

 From time to time we have something come to us that not only has a broken leg, but the broken off part is completely gone!  Now usually we like to put any broken off parts back onto the piece, as then the wood is all the same age, and it will continue to age at the same pace as the rest of the item of furniture.  But, in a situation like this, where the broken off piece is completely gone,  we have to start from scratch and do our best to choose wood that will blend with the rest of the piece.

 In this case,  we had a beautiful Settee come in with one of  the more decorative front legs broken off.  The Settee is made out of mahogany so we put together some small pieces of matching mahogany and attached
them to the leg, as you can see in the first picture.   You can see in the second picture that we have taken some of the excess wood off and have drilled holes along the inside curve of the leg to make hand carving a bit easier.  Next a template of the leg shape was attached to the leg, for more refined removal of excess wood.  You can see in the 4th picture that all the excess wood has been removed and the fine shaping is ready to begin.
 The leg carving turned out very well.  It looks almost exactly like the other two on the settee.   Now it is off  to the finishing department.  It is their job to make the epoxy line disappear and of course to stain and finish the entire settee.  It is not particularly often that we have to do this kind of work, but fortunately we have the guys with the skill to pull it off.   Do you have a job you think is impossible?   Bring it to us, clearly this job was not enough of a challenge, so your impossible repair might be just the challenge they need!

Bed Extensions, making a Full into a Queen

This bed came in as part of a complete bedroom set, which. We have already stripped the entire set of the finish you see in this picture and are now moving on to repairs and other interesting projects.  Well, I guess I should say, project. This is a Full sized bed, most older beds were not made in a Queen or King size.  The customer is asking us to design an extension so that the bed can be made into a Queen.  We love interesting projects like this where our creativity can shine.

What we have decided to do, is make the extensions using the old bedrails.  Since a Queen is longer than a Full, they will need to be replaced anyway.  If we use the wood for the extensions, then it will match the rest of the bed, as far as age and grain.  We don't want them to look like awkward extensions though, so they have been cut to match the decorative panel at the top of the  Headboard, an the carving on the top of each extension mimics the carving on the head and footboard.  I think it is going to turn out so well, and I can hardly wait to show you the finished result.