Here's where you come to follow the progress of your piece of furniture in the shop. No, wood doesn't talk--or does it? Sure it does! As we work on your piece we learn things about where it's been, how it's been used, maybe even who (or what) has used it, and often about where it came from originally. It's a lot of fun and typically quite interesting.

This space also gives us a chance to let you know about any special experiences or progress related challenges. We try to chronicle work completed on your furniture whenever anything significant occurs. So there may not be an entry every day, but when we document them, we hope you will find these journal entries are fun, informative, purposeful, and creative.

So, have fun "listening" to our dialogue with your piece, as it is, it's Wood Talkin.
Email: woodtalkin@gmail.com

Thursday, December 13, 2012

A whole body "face-lift" at 72

I got a call to look at a family heirloom. My customer explained how she had recently inherited it from her mom, and as she described it, "a gold colored curio cabinet." Whenever I hear the words "gold colored" or "painted gold" attributed to an early 1900's piece my ears come to "A-tten-tion!". 

There was a lot of  really fine "gold-leafed" furniture manufactured in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Lots of it repeated or incorporated classic styles of the 16 and 17th. centuries. So, understandably, I wondered if the piece she was describing might fall in that category. I asked her to text me (above) a picture. 

Sure enough. What I saw justified the scheduled visit to her home and some timely discussion about what she wanted to do with her mom's "gold colored curio cabinet." Subsequently, I did some investigation about the manufacture, the Weiman Furniture Company, and their Table Quality Eirloom Series in the 1930-1940's.

I was fascinated to find exactly the same piece, an heirloom French Vitrine, featured in a fine furniture store, in N.Y., NY....and it wasn't going to sell for pennies on the dollar! This was the real deal. I suggested three choices: don't do anything, but maybe touch it up a little; sell it and buy an attractive piece that will fit your color scheme; or, refinish it. Understandably, my customer has chosen to keep this marvelous little vitrine "in the family." This little 72 year-old jewel will get what we'll call a "full-body face lift." Yah...don't you wish!

That's Wood Talkin for today. You might want to follow this fun little story...so keep listening.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)