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.

Custom Color Choice for a Gorgeous Chair

 It is rare that we get to put pictures up on our site of a chair that has not only had a beautiful new finish put on, but also has the upholstery done.  This is a special case though, as one of the upholsterers we work with in the area needed to bring the chair back to have casters put on.  Which means we got a chance to snap a pic!

This is such a unique chair design with it's shell shaped back and curlicue accents.  The chair only required minor repairs before the refinishing work was done.  A few joints had come loose which we needed to glue back together.  

When it came time to choose a stain, our client had a very specific look they were going for.  To achieve that look, we mixed up a custom color for them using 2 parts 'natural' stain and 1 part 'brown cherry' stain.   Then we applied a satin sheen finish over the top.  The custom color looks just right with the fabric they chose.  While this wasn't the most complex or unusual job we have ever done, we are so happy to be able to help our clients restore their beloved pieces such as this.  It is also pretty satisfying to know that we were able to help them create a specific look that they wanted for their home.

Any time a client has a piece of furniture refinished here at our shop we have them come in for a color constultation once all the striping, repairs and prep work are done.  This way each client gets to see exactly how the stain colors will look on their wood.  We will show them as many different colors and combination of colors that they need, so that they can make the best decision for their furniture.  This extra consultation step is something that we pride ourselves in,  the extra effort to make sure each of our clients is perfectly happy with their furniture.

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.

Restoration of a Chippendale Chair Set

Chippendale is probably one of the most well known furniture makers and we had the pleasure of  working on a set of Chippendale style chairs in our shop.  Actually these two chairs are so old, they may be originals.

As you can see, they came to us in really bad shape.  One was completely in pieces but they both needed to be thoroughly re-glued.  As we have worked on this set of chairs some really interesting things became apparent to us.  These little things such neat historical clues.

The chairs have identical styling, as though they were made by the same furniture house, but they are also subtly different, as though different craftsmen made each one.  Notice how the arms are the same curve, same pattern, but one has a wider flair than the other.  One chair is also a tiny bit taller than the other.  They both have the same shell motif on the front of the seat, but one is carved a little more shallow then the other.  When we put together the way the joints were made,  the tight grain of the mahogany wood (which means it really has to be very old)  and the hand made details,  we begin to see that these are very very old chairs.

With a little bit of digging about the history of Chippendale design, it begins to look as though these are original, late 1700's chairs, probably made in the Chippendale design house itself, and definitely made in England.  English Chippendale furniture was made of Mahogany, whereas American manufacturers generally used Cherry.  Thomas Chippendale also employed 40+ craftsmen who all used the same patterns, but each worked on a piece until completion.  American makers used a more assembly style process which means that the slight variations in this chair have to be from English manufacture.

After we performed the extensive repairs and regluing that these chairs needed,  we prepped them for staining and then our customer came in and chose the stain color herself.  The color she chose, and that you see on these chairs in Dark Pine stain over Mahogany wood which gives a gorgeous rich  red color. After staining with our water based stains,  a glaze was applied so that the intricate carving that Chippendale chairs are known for,  could be fully emphasized.  Now all the chairs need is a new seat and they will be ready to grace the most elegant living room.

It has been such delight to bring these chairs back to life for our customer.  They were her grandmother's chairs and have been in dis-repair for as long as she can remember.  With such a beautiful history,  it is good to have the chairs look beautiful as well.

Training an Apprentice

 We've got a new man at the shop!  While he is not quite a full-fledged 'craftsman' yet,  he is beginning to learn the tricks of the trade.  For his first day as an apprentice craftsman, he is working on the Lathe,  learning how to create replacement spindles for a Hall Tree.  In the forefront of the first picture you can actually see one of the existing spindles still stuck into the Hall Tree.  Our apprentice will need to successfully create two more spindles, to replace a few missing ones.  He starts out by cutting several pieces of practice wood to the correct length.  The exact centers must be found, and then a hole drilled into that spot.

Each block is put onto the lathe and smoothed into a cylindrical shape using a large, shallow carving knife.  Then, each of the curves from the existing spindle is measured with calipers and the measurements are then marked on the new spindle.  Using these markings, our apprentice then learned how to use various carving knives to contour the spindle.  Calipers were used each step of the way, to make sure the new spindle is exactly the same size as the old.

This is very tricky work for someone who doesn't have a whole lot of experience.  After watching the process the first time, he was able to complete a few spindles on his own, which is pretty impressive.  With each spindle, he got closer and closer to the desired effect and is just about ready to move on to the 'real' thing, which will be carved out of Redwood to match the rest of the Hall Tree.  Learning to work with wood in this fashion is a pretty unique thing in our modern world.  Other then high school woodshop class, there aren't a lot of opportunities for a person to learn this trade from an expert.  That is why it is so exciting for us to be able to take on and train an apprentice.  It means that the skills required to turn broken furniture into beautiful, functional furniture, will last into the next generation.

Biscuit Joint on High Chair Seat

I showed you all pictures of this high chair when it was in 18 pieces, a few posts back.  Well, we are moving forward with the project and are to the point where we need to put the seat back together.  The high chair is made of maple, and the seat is pieced together. The combination of those to factors caused a very common problem.  Maple very frequently looses moisture over time which causes it to shrink.  When the wood shrinks, the joints separate and the seat falls apart.  In addition to the shrinkage problem,  the way these type of seats used to be put together was with a 'butt joint'.  Meaning that it was two flat pieces of wood stuck together with glue.  This isn't a particularly strong type of adhesion method!

To fix the problems with this seat we started out by cleaning any old glue off of the pieces of the seat so that we have a clean work surface.  If this step is skipped, then any new glue could just adhere to the old glue, not to the wood, and the joints would fail again.  We then used what is called a 'Biscuit Joint' to secure the pieces together.  Small grooves were cut in the wood using a 'biscuit jointer'.  This is an exacting job, as the grooves need to be perfectly aligned. A thin oval shaped piece of wood called a 'biscuit' is then glued into one set of grooves.  Once the glue is dry, the same biscuit, attached now to a piece of wood, is glued into the matching set of grooves on the other piece of wood.  This process, if done well, leaves a very tight, sturdy joint that is completely invisible.