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

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

At the Door...

New arrivals this past week or so include...
Four wonderful antique red oak dining chairs and a wonderful antique red oak library table. Yes, these have their own stories to tell, and yes, a great part of their stories is in the obvious scars they have to show for the tales.

So, we'll be back...and keep listening.

A QUESTION OF IDENTITY

Quite occasionally we get a piece that has no identification. (It's sorta like you or I getting stopped for a traffic violation and not having a drivers license or proof of insurance.) No, I'm not arresting or citing anyone for bringing a piece in the door that has no manufacturer's identifying marks, but I'm always wondering...wondering. "Who put this piece together?"

Recently these pieces (covered, right) arrived in the shop. They are very obviously well made and very upscale in the quality of their finish. So it's always nice to put a "name on the face" so to speak. The tops of these two bedside tables needed to be refinished; several other areas on each piece had suffered similar damage. The lacquer finish is still very much alive, suggesting they were manufactured within the past 10 years or so.

These two came with a similarly finished Sleigh Bed designed headboard and matching foot-board. Their top horizontal rails (not yet pictured) are being stripped and refinished to remove several scars and dents and then the vertical posts will be be touched-up. These will be followed into the shop by two standing dressers. They complete the set. Their arrival in the shop is anticipated just as soon as these items are completed and deliverable--ready to trade them places.

Sometimes the wood doesn't say as much as we'd like it to. Hmmm, some people are that way too, huh.

That's Wood Talkin for today.

Dick