French Provincial Styled Antique Writing Desk

Here's a really memorable repair.

My customer brought this fantastic hand-made French Provincial styled writing desk to the shop. Her family history goes back at least four generations in the Denver area. In this case we're talking about a gentleman who owned a store in lower downtown Denver in the 1860-1880 time frame. Cool stuff. This was his desk!


It belongs to my customer now...a great, great granddaughter? She explained how that when she occasionally needed to move it, the back left leg complained a lot, then...it fell off. That's memorable in and of itself, but upon close inspection of the broken area it was obvious to me that the top bulbus flare of the leg had long been the tasty dinner for some now long gone worms. Many years ago they had eaten themselves out of the wood and disappeared "into the night." (see pic below)

This beautiful piece is the handiwork of a fine craftsman similarly swallowed up into that long night. But his workmanship still sings loud and clear in the glory of this beautiful piece. So, in a response to the challenge he has introduced, and for my customer's sake--to repair his work and to save this beautiful desk--the question at hand is about what to do now?

I began the project pragmatically. I carefully removed the entire leg from the desk. Then, I carefully cut away the spongy portion of the worm eaten bulb from that leg. The picture (left below) shows this spongy cut-out. Below, I'm holding it in front of (juxtaposed on) the newly finished leg so you can see where it fit.
Freeing the leg from the desk offered me a lot more flexibility. I was able to utilize several machines in the shop, and it enhanced the gluing, clamping, and final finishing processes.







 I carefully fabricated a new piece from raw Ash wood stock and glued it into the original leg. I also had to fabricate the hip portion, as a separate piece in this case. (It had apparently dropped off and was lost from the leg years ago as the worms did their tunneling throughout the upper portion of that leg...see pic below.)

With these processes complete, the last challenge was to securely replace the leg back into the desk's frame and supporting structures.

 




So, is this a beauty or what?! I've offered a few pics just to savor the lines and the patina of this special piece.



This is Wood Talkin for today. Wood talks---how often do you listen?


                                                           Dick

A Broken Leg.. A Marvelous Old Couch

Hi Everybody. In this situation my customer called me to look at a recently recovered couch. These older pieces are often very well built inside and outside. They often incorporate a quality of materials and workmanship that puts much of todays similarly priced items to shame. This one is a great case in point. The internal quality of this older couch is well worth the cost of a repair, and it will give the family another 20 years of flawless service.

What you see (left) are two pictures of the couch's right front leg socket. I've peeled back the upholstery and its foundation fabric in order to get to the joint area, and then I will try to see what has happened.

Here, in the picture (left) I've cleaned out all the shattered material in preparation to fabricate and place a solid new oak seat for the leg in that spot. The leg of the couch will then be secured--re-glued and multiply screwed--into this new oak seat. As you can see in the picture, two dowel tenons from the couch's arm structure will also secure into the new oak seat, AND I will be re-securing the dowels
--those 4-round circles that I had to cut--back into the new oak seat too (see the pic). As you can see, the new piece's placement, (I'm sorry it's not shown) will support the structural integrity (rigidity) of the corner at the floor and from the couch's arm above.

Yes, it was all very much worth the effort. My customer was very happy--and then so was I!

That's Wood Talkin. Take care of your pieces---cuz they all have some fun stories to tell!

Visiting the Past

I was thumbing through some old shop notes and ran across a really fun picture...this one. It's a pic a customer gave me several years ago upon my returning an antique rocking chair--fully restored. I remember they were delighted--so excited to get their storied piece back to sit prominently in their living room. I understand that at some point my customer's father used the rocker on the front porch of their country home, and that in the family's story it was one of only a few items rescued when their house caught fire! Anyway, they brought the piece to me in a old fruit-packing box. Yup, it was all in pieces, but all the pieces were there-- even though it, reportedly, it had waited for decades. It lay piecemeal and akimbo in that box anticipating redemption (if antiques can do that). It was treasure in a closet cubbyhole somewhere in the house.

If I remember correctly, the old rocker belonged initially to my customer's great grand mother. So in looking at the picture, and for historical perspective, I had to keep in mind that my customer was herself in her early 80's. The picture captures her mom, as an infant, propped in her mom's old rocker! So, of course that means that the rocker, already looking used in the pic, is at least the age of my customer, early 80"s, plus the age of her mom, plus the years that her mom's mom, her great grandmother, had it after she bought it brand new. We're probably talking 1860-1880. Fun thoughts.

I have posted several pics in this blog, the one above, then this one (right). Here you see the rocker as it looked in the shop stripped and fully re-assembled. The first time it's back on its mature rocker-runners for--as my customer explained it--perhaps thirty years! Then, after this  pic was taken it was uniformly stained, sealed, and finished in a couple coats of clear satin lacquer. Finally, a leather-look seat was fashioned and carefully tacked into place where you see the round seat opening begs for it. You see it here (left below), and wow, it's a handsome devil again for sure! (Don't you wish we could all get re-done like that!?)

Since this story was initially told in a post several years ago, my customer has passed away. I found myself wondering where the rocker is now? Do the new owners love it? Do they know any of the stories it can tell?  Hmmm. This is the fun stuff in my being able to play this role for people. People have stories to tell....and so does their furniture. Thanks for letting me play this role for you!

That's Wood Talkin for today. Keep listening...because wood always has a story to tell.

Dick

Late 1880's Oak Dresser Cabinet

Let me introduce you to this storied Old Gentleman. As we expect, he's got an interesting story to tell. My customer explained how he grew up with this piece. It was in his grandfather's home and later his own home. 

My customer explained how it once had a framed mirror. It sat atop the cabinet. It was integrated with a miniature and probably ornate little set of oak drawers. Given the hand carvings around the edges of the main dresser (see insert pic below), I suspect the little cabinet and drawers were similarly very attractive.

Super hand carvings

When you look closely at these pic of the top, below, you can see the doweling holes that supported it, it's mirror, and the mirror's frame. I asked my customer where these items might be? He had no idea where they went. My suspicion: they sit handsomely, now albeit stand-alone, on someone's dresser--a very attractive little jewelry box, perhaps?

Ugly stain and missing cabinet' shadow & holes

 
At first I was hesitant to do a complete refinish on this special  antique (Charles Eastlake). (Remember the debate and discussion, "if you touch it, then it's no longer an antique." ) But then as I began the discovery process, starting with a more detailed inspection of the top. I realized this handsome gentleman boasts still other little secrets. Let's begin with the ugly stain we can see on top of the cabinet. 

Green stuff behind the removed pull

Then, notice the curious green stain behind the third-drawer's right pull. That tell-tale green was a reaction to a lubricant I used to  release the pull's attaching screw from the drawer face. It was rusted into the hole! A closer look at the case told me the screw had been corroded from a leak of some kind. The leak had happened on top of the dresser, then dripped down the font, right side of the dresser--including the frame, all the drawers, and the below-cabinet door below, too! It's a blue-gray stain. I've often seen it happen when wood tannin reacts to an oxidizing agent (like water borne acetates). Something, maybe wine(?), pooled on top and then dripped down the dresser to the floor below. It left a dark streak down the right front of the cabinet as it cascaded to the floor. 

Check-out the stripped cabinet pic (left). Note the circle around each of the drawer pull holes. These tell us the existing drawer pulls are not original. In fact, the originals were metal, probably solid brass or a brass overlay. They were BIG. The larger ones were 3" in diameter and the smaller ones were 2" in diameter and "pointed" around the perimeter. They left these these distinctive markings where the points lay against the drawers faces.  

Finally. I realized this handsome guy had experienced his own face-lift some fifty or sixty years ago. So, mine would not be the first. The cabinet was originally  completed (1880's-90's) in a classic clear varnish that yellowed as he matured. (Yup, we all do our own brand of "yellowing" with age, don't we!). Then, when this frustrating spill took place to stain the top and the front of this handsome guy, "Oh my, what to do now! 

See the crazing in the finish and the circles around the drawer pull hole also the green oxidation of the pull's fastener

The answer my customer's family member chose came in the form of a complete re-varnish of the cabinet.  A dark brown varnish was chosen to cover over the original finish. For whatever reason the ornate cabinet hardware was removed and discarded (?). Oak pulls were chosen and similarly finished, then they were placed where the brasses had been. The new brown varnish overlay helped obscure the cabinet's stains, and it somewhat covered the circular "points" where the brasses had been for the previous 70-80 years. In this enlarged pic, if you look closely, you can see a cosmetic cover-up was also used. The varnish didn't fill in the crazing marks of the older finish underneath, so it appeared as though the dark top finish was original. See the pic (above).


My customers chose a lighter finish color. It is darker than the original finish, but lighter than the previous re-cover. They were comfortable letting the piece tell its own story. I tightened up and re-glued some structural members inside the case, and then I gently (chemically) hand-stripped the cabinet to the bare wood. The stains and wear marks of the years were painful evidence of the years bumps and abuses, but the unfinished state merely promised a fun new future vitality. It'll proudly wear its history, albeit a little toned down. (Don't we all wish that, huh!) We looked for some LARGE reproductions of the Eastlake 3" brasses, but finally settled on what we suspect are smaller versions of the same "pointed" original circular brass pulls. I was able to bleach some of the dark stain out of the drawer and cabinet fronts, but the stain--and the stories--remain to those who know what and where to look for them. 

When the cabinet was re-varnished after the spill its color was darkened, the pulls were changed, and curiously all the keyholes were filled with a stain-matching dark resin! They were still there, buried, and they were no longer functional. So, one of my tasks was to carefully remove this fill material from each lock and then clean and lubricate each one. They all work now and we found a working key through an area antique dealer. Listen carefully and you can almost hear the cabinet's grateful sigh of pent-up r-e-l-i-e-f!

So, there it is. It's been gently restored to past glory and it happily offers some fun contemporary tales, too!

That's Wood Talkin for the New Year 2016. Happy New Year!

1940s Quality

Here's a fun discussion. My customer contacted me to refinish a dining room set his wife recently inherited. She had grown up with it in her parents home. Since then it had been refinished in a darker color, but it needed that kind of special attention again. A dining room table with two leaves, six chairs including a captain's chair, and a matching 4-drawer, 2-door buffet finished out the set. All of it is made of solid hard maple--no veneers our core woods anywhere!

All these dining room jewels (below) were made by the Haywood-Wakefield Furniture Company in the late 1930s through the mid -1960s. They have the signature 40s-60s look. Not everyone is going to appreciate it.

When it comes to "appreciating" the style that distinguishes a period, it helps to do some homework. In this situation this is
an heirloom set that my customer loves being around. It doesn't have 21st century contemporary lines or color, but the quality of these pieces--the wood and workmanship--is second to none...and it's highly collectible. The table and chairs, for example, are well worth $1400 and the buffet is probably valued at or around half that price in and of itself...as is. You may be able to find debatably "nicer" contemporary pieces in today's furniture market, but never this quality combination of wood and workmanship. Just ask the piece--if it could only answer for ALL to hear--and it would tell us, with it's chest puffed way up, all about it's glorious past!

My customers wanted this sweet combination returned to it's past glory. For them that meant I needed to research the original color and patina and know how I could replicate them. They wanted all the pieces to look just the way she remembered the set when she was a little girl. So, that's exactly what we did. We had to begin by doing OUR homework.

What you see below us what the respective pieces looked like before any work was done. I'll soon update this post with a picture of the finished dining set. In the meantime my customer is having the chair seats redone in "original" patterns.

That's Wood Talkin for today. Please keep listening, because wood really does have a story to tell!

Dick

Danish Ingenuity

When was the last time you saw or sat at a table like this? You may not have known it was one of these. Danish in design and ingenuity, it expands and shrinks by sliding the end sections out from under or back under the center section. There are no gears or locks; it's all slip action and easy...ingenious.

This antique beauty has a dual pedestal base. It's all solid oak. It was probably a proprietory clear varnish on this oak. It appears to be a shellac now. It's elegant and simple and very special. This one came to the shop to make a minor but complicated adjustment in how the closure fit on one end.

Probably influenced by time and some predictable shrinkage, the curvature on one side of it's "leaf" didn't tightly match the corresponding rounded corner of the center piece's rounded edge. (see the pic) We did not completely eliminate the gap, but we were able to almost close it...almost. It looks much better! What do you think? (Right, how it looked before; left, how it is now)

Ok. That's Wood Talkin for today. Keep listening. This is fun!

Dick

It's Twisted!

Here's a gem from top to bottom and from beginning to end.
Our customers recently experienced some disappointing and painful surprises. Aargh! (Life bites! sometimes, huh.) So the family decided to have this fine custom-built maple table redone to serve some critical upcoming family gathering plans---and hopefully before the up and coming Christmas holidays!  

The top of this beauty is just shy of 72 inches in diameter, so it's both big AND beautiful. Just take a long look at that pedestal base (below)! It's "twisted" 90 degrees from bottom to top.  Is that cool or what?!

The base's four-inch circular twists (below), a total of eight, really help distinguish this piece. The size of the top on that stunning  base and the visual depth we anticipate in the top's maple grain will really make it visually exquisite when all the work is done. 

I'm showing it to you in pieces here simply because we couldn't put the top on it's base in the shop. It occupied a third of the shop for almost two weeks, so we had to schedule it into our work accordingly.


In keeping with the home's decor we were asked to try matching the table to the color of their home's floors (above left). That process took some trial and error (and some back-and-forth), but I think you'll agree the effort was successful.  You can see a piece of the hickory floor we "borrowed" to help us approach a color match on the table's top and base.

 

Here are a couple pictures of the base and the top respectively. I'll acquire and publish a picture of the table in the family home and all together in a future blog. God willing our customer will move back into their newly refurbished home before Christmas. In the meantime these two pics will have to do.

That's Wood Talkin for today, but keep listening...because wood has a voice of its own.

Dick