HOME > GALLERY > BEFORE AND AFTER PICTURES / PROGRESSIONS, Set One

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This is a beautiful marble topped solid mahogany entry table. Some boxes had been sitting on top of the marble when there was an unexpected source of water coming down from above! The marble became dirty and discolored and the water that pooled on the harp and base below badly discolored the finish. We removed the damaged finish, cleaned the marble and refinished the base. We think it turned out quite well. How about you?

Footstools aren't the first thing we think of when we think of fine furniture. Yet even footstools can be transformed and maybe even take on a refined look. Case in point above. Who but the visionary owner of this footstool would have thought this could look so good after being redone? Here you can see the steps: remove the old fiber rush, strip and reglue the wood frame, refinish the frame, reweave the rush and finally, coat the rush with a fresh coat of an orange shellac. Just beautiful.

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This high chair successfully served one generation of children and has now been make ready to serve a second. Perhaps not surprisingly, expectant grandparents are the ones most likely to bring us furniture like this.

Above and to the left are two illustrations of what might be discovered under paint and what might be decided regarding the finish as a result. Both owners originally intended to use a wood tone finish but the burned wood hidden under the paint caused an alteration in the plans for the child's high chair.

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We love to see both the transformation that can take place on hopeless looking pieces of furniture and the delight this brings to the owners.

This pair of night stands appeared destined for the dumpster. However the owner had the hope that there might still be something nice hidden behind the badly marred surface.

She was right! As you can see, once the damaged finish was removed, the wood still looked very attractive.

After stripping, the only remaining damage was some oil spotting on the top surfaces which you can see if you look closely at the photos above. It was a challenge to draw the oil out sufficiently to obtain an evenly colored appearance after staining. To the left you can see that we were successful.

Our customer wanted the most natural appearance possible on these pieces. We used a "natural" stain wich adds just a hint of an amber tone but more importantly accentuates the contrasts in the grain pattern.

The original designer of these night stands made brilliant choices, a beautiful and dramatic cut of mahogany for the tops, and a book matched, almost "flame" pattern for the drawer fronts, surrounded by the contrasting pattern of the yellow prima vera band of veneer. All of these design features appeared beautifully after refinishing was complete.

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It was disappointing to lose the floral decal on the headpiece of this rocker, but that look was also very dated and not attractive to its owners. Once it was refinished, the rocker looked stunning, the floral decal would have detracted from the look.

By the way, the first picture is after stripping. It illustrates that not all wood stains are removed with stripping. Stains formulated primarily from dyes deeply penetrate the wood fibers and permanently color them. Although we successfully removed the finish, the effects of the dye are still apparent.

We hated to lose the decal on the top of this piece as well, and did offer to reproduce it for this customer, but it wasn't important enough relative to the cost. They ended up with a very nice looking piece without it anyway!

Many people, after viewing this website, wonder if we only work on fine furniture and valuable antiques. No, we work on whatever our customers bring us that they value enough to have renewed. This customer really liked the way this chair felt when sitting at a desk all day. Even though not a highly valuable piece on its own, that value of comfort made it worth while to invest money into its renewal. One other point is worth mentioning. Almost all of this chair subsequently was upholstered, basically only the legs and arm posts remained exposed. Nevertheless, we sealed all the wood so all of it would be equally protected. Details matter to us!

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Now that you have seen what we have done for others, what can we do for you? CONTACTING AND FINDING US