February 2013 - Brendan Carpenter

Why we restored it…

Generally speaking you don’t want to modify or refinish a piece this age as it can have a very negative effect on the value. However, the client had already begun to strip the piece before contacting me so that made us all in! We had to refinish it for this wardrobe restoration.

What we did in this restoration..

The client had attempted to sand on one side and had sanded through the paint to what was a yellow/golden color. Initially, we thought they had sanded through to a layer of milk paint. However, after working on the piece a bit, we discovered this wasn’t a light coat of milk paint. Rather it was the color that the underneath poplar had aged to. I have never seen poplar turn this beautiful golden hue… I guess it was the mixture of painted top coats, age of the wood and the environment that made this happen. As such the color was chosen…we were going to leave it natural. Read more

I like to give an antique look to furniture when it makes sense. I recently was asked to make a small bench for a client. Here’s how we did it. Because we wanted the resulting end look to be very rustic, distressed and aged, I followed specific procedures. So, when I picked out the lumber I chose pieces that had lots of dents, scratches, nicks and saw marks.

The Bench Project – Giving antique look to furniture

(Also, I picked Oak because the finishing steps described below work best on open grain woods like oak, pine, etc..) The rest of the antique look to furniture appearance I achieved during the finishing process.

Month: February 2013

Beautiful, late 1800’s wardrobe restoration

Why we restored it…

Give antique look to furniture in 5 easy steps

Here is how I did it 5 easy steps for giving an antique look to furniture….