Given the diverse nature of this place, I'm going to assume at least one or two of you are into repairing, restoring or otherwise rejuvenating old furniture. Not necessarily antiques, but antiques are cool too.
Since buying an older house, I'm finding myself increasingly interested in older pieces of furniture. Partly because Ive caught the restoration bug and seeing things brought back to their original state (or as close as possible to it) is awesome. And partly because I feel like restoring an old house and then filling it with new modern style furniture doesn't suit it well. I've always liked old stuff, it would seem old furniture is just another old thing I've grown to appreciate.
What got the ball rolling on this thread though has been a few acquisitions over the last couple of months. First I got offered a few pieces from a friend of my parents who was cleaning out her mother's place after she passed. I ended up with a marble topped wash stand from (what I'm assuming) the late 1800s, along with a chest of drawers and a fire screen. None of it was high end well cared for antiques, and the drawers and wash stand were both the proud owners of some very ordinary paint jobs. But the wash stand just kind of had a look to it I liked and figured it was worth having if only to get the paint off it and see what was hiding underneath, so they followed me home eventually.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was driving past a local book and bric a brac shop that often has old junk for sale, and saw an old lounge set out front. Curiosity got the better of me and next thing I was parting with what I felt was a pretty fair price for it and again, it follows me home.
Well, I got time the other day to start stripping the wash stand, 5 minutes of work with the heat gun, scraper and a razorblade and I was hooked, the wood hidden beneath the ghastly paint was gorgeous and I spent the rest of the day stripping as much as I could. All in all, it's in decent shape, but I'll need to try and repair one of the drawer pulls and probably remove wood from the bottom of the cupboard to make a new door insert to replace the original that has long since been broken and replaced with a piece of masonite. As for what the wood is? No idea, I'm not great with wood, I've always been more metal and machinery oriented, but I guess I'm going to start learning wood.
After the success of the wash stand, I decided to try the cheat of drawers, it'll move with the heat gun, but whatever the green "mess" is under the top layer of paint isn't nearly as heat gun compliant as the outer layer, it also appears to have leached through the original varnish/shellac and into the wood a bit. I'll persevere with it, but it'll probably end up a total sand back, stain and refinish. It appears to be pine of some type, but again, no wood guy. I've also got no real idea as to it's age, the previous owners remember it from childhood, so it'd be pre 1950's, past that, I got some learning to do.
The lounge set will need some serious cleaning if the original fabric is to be saved, otherwise it may need to be reupholstered. It also needs some tightening up on some of the joints and the wood of the arms and legs will need a little bit of love. Not necessarily a total restoration, but definitely some love to make sure it'll last another few decades. Age has me completely stumped, I've guessed maybe 1920s, but to be honest it's strictly a guess.
In amongst all this I got to thinking about an old sideboard I picked up a few years back, it was painted black, and I never thought of it as an old bit of furniture. I just thought it was from the 80s or something. Well, now that it's in the new shed, not in storage an hour away, I decided it might be worth a look to see if it's older than I first thought (it shares a few styling points with the wash stand). So out come the drawers, dove tail joints. The screws look older than I would have expected and the grain of the backing board seemed very similar to the wash stand. I grabbed the heat gun and started to peel back 5/6 layers of paint. Well, to my surprise, it's solid wood and appears to have alot more age than I first thought. My partner has never been a fan of it, but friends and family have always been drawn to it, as had I. She was very surprised when it started looking like it might actually be old and might actually refinish into something nice. Date and wood type again escape me. I'm hazarding a guess at oak, possibly rift sawn.
So, with that rambling mess aside, I figured it was time to ask if any of you got into fixing up old furniture, what tips and tricks youdbe willing to share and possibly have a spot to put up a few photos and maybe get some pointers in identifying the age of a piece of furniture and what it's made from.
Feel free to show off your own projects if you've got them.
