A few of the Recent projects in our shops

Bedroom set refinishing

This week we refinished a French style bedroom set that had been painted. It can be hard to know how

something that's been pained is going to come out?  This one was factory painted, than painted again by the owner.

Factory painted furniture can be the most difficult to refinish, since they almost always painted directly over

the raw wood.  In this case, the customer hoped for a honey tone, but was aware that it may have to go darker

depending on how well we could remove the paint.

Above: The triple dresser before and after stripping. We were pleased that it stripped fairly clean, but it

required a good deal of effort. We found the wood to be Cherry.

Below left:  Some of the drawers after being sanded.

Below right: The drawers to the tall chest being finished.

Below:  The finished pieces. They came out better than I had expected, and I was able to keep the finish

fairly clear and light. I love working on furniture, but truthfully, the favorite part of a job like this is being done.

Secretary desk refinishing and repair

This month's update is a Secretary desk that had severe water damage due to a flood in a basement.

It belonged to our client's father, so they wanted it restored as a sentimental Item.

It was not until I returned it finished, that I got the complete story of the flood.

It seems that the town sewage pipe blocked up and backed up into our clients

fathers basement, flooding the basement with raw sewage. Good thing my mother taught

me to always wash my hands after restoring a piece of furniture.

Above:  The water (let's just call it water, it make's me feel better) completely wrecked the bottom half of this China cabinet, which was in

poor condition to begin with.

Below: The first thing we repaired was the base molding, which we re- veneered. We also replaced the inside bottom panel

and the back panel.

Below: Some new veneer, a lot of sanding & a new finish. This China cabinet has been given new life.

I enjoy sharing the more unusual and extreme jobs with you in this section of the website. 

This job was all that and then some.  This oriental chest was purchased for our customer by his wife shortly

before she passed away. It was very important to him for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the paint was 

separating from the substrate and flaking off. My job was to repair the damaged areas and lacquer the 

cabinet to prevent further problems in the future.

The worst part was the front facing top rail. That section had to be completely re-painted.

I started by masking out and painting the background. I laid out my tools for the line painting.

The main concern our customer had was that the cabinet look no different than original.

He wanted it to look just the way it was when his wife purchased it. That was actually

a pretty tall order due to all the scroll work that would have to be re-painted. Below left,

I painted the upper and lower pin stripes. Below right I have the main line painted.

Below, I finished painting all the scroll designs from the left upper hinge to the right upper hinge.

All the new paining would then need to be antiqued and aged to match the rest of the scroll

that bordered the case.

Below...The finished Job.

A client testimonial...

Here's a letter from a happy customer I just received .  I thought I'd share it with you.

"Dear Rodney, Jennifer, & The Restoration Studios,

               Thank You so much for all of your hard work on my Henkel Harris headboard. It looks great and

no one will ever know it was scratched! Thanks also for working around my and my mom's schedule.

The thoughtfulness that you put into repairing <the scratches> is appreciated. Finally, thank you

for rushing the job! I will definitely recommend The Restoration Studio to anyone who asks!"  

"Sincerely & with 

many thanks, 

<S. Smith>"

The story behind this headboard is as follows. Miss Smith had moved back home with her parents with the

stipulation that her beloved cat be confined to the basement. Mom didn't like cats!  Well, the kitty got

into a sectioned off room in the basement that were to be off limits to kitty. It so happens that mom's headboard

was being stored in this room, and as fate would have it, kitty decided it would make a fine scratching post!

Enter The Restoration Studio. We went into stealth mode and snatched the headboard while mom wasn't home.

Did a prompt refinish on the scratched areas, leaving other sections as they were. Made it look exactly as it was

before the "incident", and snuck it back while mom wasn't looking.

Wanna see more projects ?

Check out our archives:

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