Over the past five years or so, we taken on more repairs and restoration of worthy antiques for the folks in our area .... Its great work on a number of levels: its a break from the routine; it gives us a chance to be heroes by saving or polishing items of, in some cases, extreme sentimental value; its a quick project rather than something you work on for days or weeks ; and the work is often challenging and thought provoking. Weve learned to try to do no harm by doing as little as possible to get things back in shape. Over the last year and a half we have had the good fortune to work with a couple who suffered a pretty serious fire and have learned many techniques for cleaning smoke damaged furniture . The star of this post I have written about before. The client had it for a long time, having chosen it when his late grandmothers possessions were divied up.
Heres the only shot of it I have pre-cleaning ...
Here Im about to start on the touch up ... We talked to about a million people about this piece ... Its old; as far as we could tell, no one has ever messed with the colorings; its important to the client ... he got it from his grandmother and, though its hard to photograph, in person you can clearly see his name (Chinn) and the date 1706, a year his ancestor married and built a large home in Virginia that still stands today. So, is it possible this chest has passed down on the male side of his family for over 300 years???? The client was floored when we found this. One dealer I spoke with felt maybe it was not quite that old....Others were not so sure ... Regardless, it was now an important family piece for sure ...
I have lightened the photo and changed the contrast, but here it is.... there are other writings on two of the other panels, but they are not as easy to translate.
Another view of it ...
After testing a small area of the paint (for about the third or fourth time), with a white paper towel and denatured alcohol, we rub coated the first panel with sealcoat, a dewaxed shellac.
That provided a barrier coat and I built and blended on top of that with three colors of latex paint on the same brush at the same time ... I often use this technique when recoloring antique finishes ...
dab it on ... smush it around and redab ... if you go too far, which I did a couple of times on this project, the barrier shellac coat allows you to erase your mistakes by rubbing with alcohol to go back to the beginning ... recoat over the color when youre happy ..
I guess blot is the right word. You kind of pounce it with a smushed up paper towel until it looks right.
The first end panel retouched ... note the difference between the side base and the front ...
Here the front is retouched on the right, but untouched on the left ...
The Chinn end ..
The top looked like it might be a challenge, but we cruised through it to wrap it up ...
When I delivered it yesterday, the client said it now looked better than it did before the fire, a high compliment for sure ...
For more information on our work repairing and restoring worthy antiques, see this link here... Or for two of our finest saves ... this link ...
let us now talk about interior design and furniture making. they are related .... i have alchoices thought them to be separate disciplines, but in looking through my on site photos folder recently, i realized that making a piece of furniture, particularly a piece for a particular client, for a particular spot, with their design input, is more than furniture making. if you get it right, not only have you manifested their vision, but you have created for them a special place, a place where they too can see their vision. powerful stuff, when you think about it .... so, that said, i will be adding a new category to my blog, interior design, where occasionally i will post a few photos of successful collaborations that i feel meet the criteria above. like the sideboard above, some are from my own home, where the realization began; others from my local clients homes.click the photos to enlarge them ...
this is one of my favorite before and after rooms ... the challenge was to take a little used guest room/fly tying spot and turn it into a husband and wife home office/fly tying spot ... lots of conversations, lots of drawings, lots of changes ... before above ...
we did, in the end, receive a couple of design awards for this one ...
This chest was built for my 7 year old grand daughter. The significance of this project is it an exact duplicate of a chest I built 20 years ago when I first started working wood. Made of pine with a coopered top, the finish is water based stain mixed to match the furniture in the room. The hinge is "child safe" and the drawer simply slides to either side to access larger items below. 
willl delivered this little piece to shelburne yesterday. right on lake champlain. a beautiful house in a beautiful spot. its a smallish, 7 drawer chest, with sidehung dovetail drawers, felt on the drawer bottoms, and removable low dividers in each drawer. i think the form is also called a lingerie cabinet and this one will be located in the clients bathroom. click the photos to enlarge them.
