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Antique Restoration |
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Antique restoration involves a lot of different skills, there is far more involved for proper professional restoration than just a quick wax. Firstly you need cabinet making skills to understand how the furniture was made in the first place and also how to carry out any repairs. Veneering - most antiques especially the more decorative ones are veneered or have veneered panels, these would have been laid by hand using traditional methods, no heated veneer presses here. French polishing - this would need to include colouring and matching as well as being able to polish large areas by hand. Most people with a little knowledge would be able to French polish a small box or a stool, but a table top of a grand piano requires long learnt and practiced techniques. |
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Settee re-gilded and upholstered in silk
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Probably most important of all is an understanding of how antique furniture should look, there's not much point in having all the skills above and using them to make everything look brand spanking. Every age and style has a different look about it and that knowledge can only be learnt from working on the actual furniture. Sure you could read books and get an outline, but in reality hands on experience is the only way ( in my opinion anyway). A piece of Antique furniture when fully restored should look like a piece that has beenaround for one or two hundred years, not new! |
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Wing chair restoration This chair was brought in fully upholstered, one back leg had broken off and the frame was wobbly, Upon removing the upholstery it was revieled that the poor chair was riddled with wood worm, and the frame was in a very bad state as you can see from the images here. The client liked the chair so much it was decided to do a full restoration job, the bottom 4 rails were replaced along with one of the rounded front columns, the broken back leg had an internal scalf which provided the new joint up to the back, there were many other small repairs, and the entire structure was taken apart and re-glued. The new upholstery was the final stage making a lovely chair again from a rotten wreck. |
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| Some examples | ||||||||||||||
French Polishing
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Carving
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Carving matched to blend
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French Cabinet - needs repair
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French Cabinet - Finished
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Blackamore - Restored
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Here is a good example of proper restoration, a simple Mahogany Tray with a shell veneered panel. As you can see from the first picture the gallery is missing. When the Tray was brought in the gallery was there, just, but was suffering from wood worm, it was so badly eaten the only option was to make a new one. The final look is still antique like and the new section blends in with the piece, not standing out in any way. |
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Click for larger image
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Click for larger image
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Click for larger image |
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Below is an example of carving and painted furniture restoration. This is the bottom of an Italian Headboard, you can see the new piece in the far left picture. The Pine was then covered in Gesso, this is usually used in gilding as a type of very smooth filler, I used it here to give a smooth base for the acrylic paint. The entire headboard was then touched in and the new and old blended perfectly |
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