Birch Wine Bar

Bar Before

Bar After

This simple bar was quite the challenge! Made of solid birch, this bar was in my customer's family since the mid-1960s. We received it in the condition it had been for over 50 years, painted white, with more than its share of scratches. Old hardware dated this piece, so we had our work cut out for us. 

You never truly know how much work a piece is going to be until you get into the "bones" of it. Stripping this small bar was deceptively difficult for a few reasons; there was a lot of surface area and the raised panel details as well as the legs and inside was an enormous task. The interior glass holders each took close to two hours to strip. When you strip painted surfaces and plan on staining them, it's necessary to remove every speck of paint. If you don't, the stain will not be able to soak into the wood as those tiny paint specks remain and stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. 

Elegant Cedar Chest Revival

Cedar Chest Before

This was a classic antique cedar chest, similar to the others we've done, but the first one with a combination lock on the front. It was in the family of my customer for many years, so she wanted it refinished to maintain of her family's treasures. It had seen better days, for sure, but that didn't deter us from making it better than new.

First, like most project we do, total stripping and sanding was in order. This revealed the beautiful linear design of this remarkable cedar chest. It was in great shape already, so a little refinishing made a huge difference. We were so glad the veneer was in tact, as many older chests lose their original veneer over the years, because they get used and see a lot of wear.

Cedar Chest After

After stripping and sanding, we applied a light stain which brought out the true beauty of the cedar. We added the proper hardware to the interior, which had an incorrect hinge set on the back and nothing holding it up safely. The front combination lock needed to be polished. It looked fabulous!

Once everything else was accomplished, a good interior cleaning and the chest was complete. My customer was speechless over the results. This chest was truly a unique piece of furniture which deserved all the TLC we could give it. Check out the other cedar chests we've worked on at these links: http://finalefurniture.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-waterfall-cedar-chest.html
http://finalefurniture.blogspot.com/2014/10/solid-cedar-chest.html
http://finalefurniture.blogspot.com/2013/12/1945-lane-waterfall-cedar-chest.html

Thonet Chairs Back to Original

Thonet Chairs Before

Thonet Chairs After

A customer had acquired two Thonet chairs at a resale shop, however, someone had painted these expensive designer chairs with black spray paint and never bothered to mask off the vinyl seats or back, so the black paint left a shadowed over-spray. She preferred to keep the chairs original, thus it was necessary to remove the paint and clean up the vinyl, and strip the paint from the wood part of the chairs.

Old Painted Oak Dresser Makeover

Dresser Before Stripping

Dresser After Stripping

Every once in a while we come across a stunning piece of furniture in a corner of a basement at an estate sale, hiding its beauty to the world underneath a thick layer of dust and in this case, paint. Likely this dresser was painted well over fifty years ago and hadn't been touched since. We spotted it and being it was the last day of the estate sale, bought it for an astonishing price of $7.50. We were thrilled as we could see the great "bones" of this elegant beauty buried somewhere beneath all that paint, which surely was charming at the time, but had long lost its appeal.

Dining Room Makeover

Chair Before

Chair After

This antique dining set belonged my customer's grandmother. She had many fond memories of family dinners, sitting at the table for all those wonderful holiday meals. Unfortunately, after her grandmother's passing, the set wasn't used and the years passing had taken their toll. She wanted the set refinished, so we had our work cut out for us.

Their were six chairs and a table with two extensions. The chairs were lovely, lots of detail in the carved fruit back and shapely legs. The set was also mahogany. These chairs had been quite banged up and required a great deal of TLC and many hours of stripping and sanding before the stain could be applied, but afterward the set had not only been restored, it was even better than new!

Table Before

Dining Set After

My customer had ordered upholstery fabric and had the chairs re-upholstered elsewhere. I love the beautiful robin's egg blue fabric with its bumble bee design. It matched her carpet and decor perfectly. I can't image a better choice for fabric. Once delivered, I was able to capture a photo of the entire set in its original setting, showing off the beauty of the furniture and all the many hours of work that went into it.

Dining Set in Customer's Home

1906 Victrola Makeover

Victrola Cabinet Before

A customer had contacted me about refinishing an old Victrola Gramophone cabinet to be used as a bathroom vanity for her remodeled basement bathroom. The cabinet had the music apparatus removed, but still had the split top and a hole on the side where the crank had once been. The cherry was quite beautiful, but in its condition, it was difficult to envision just how nice it truly was.

Victrola Cabinet After

Stripping the cabinet was first on the list of things to do. After all the previous old stain had been painstakingly removed, it was then sanded and re-stained with cherry stain. In order to prepare the top for the bowl-style vessel sink, it was necessary to fill in the space between the two sides with wood filler then stain over it. Since the top had a left and a right side which the customer had wanted to keep, this was the most feasible solution and it looked pretty good.

My customer had discussed replacing the hardware, but I assured her she'd have plenty of time to choose that once the cabinet had been refinished. I'm sure she'll have fun searching for the perfect hardware because there's so much to choose from. This was definitely a unique refinishing item but as always, very rewarding because this old gem has many years of use left it in as it makes its debut as the most beautiful vanity. What a great way to use an old piece of furniture...

Old Victrola in Customer's Basement Complete

1970's Cabinet Makeover

1970's Cabinet Before

Cabinet After Renovation

It's amazing how a bit of creative vision can transpire an ugly, outdated piece of furniture such as this 1970's era atrocity. This may have been popular back in 1972, but by today's standards, it was painfully outdated. Still, it had potential and would prove to be useful once again after a bit of renovation a lot of creativity, or perhaps equal parts of both. It had a black top, that looked suspiciously like a piece of laminate, which made the piece quite durable. However, the cabinet doors simply had to go.

Charlevoix Cherry Antique Dresser

Dresser Before

Dresser After

While on vacation, we came across this dresser at an estate sale at real date written somewhere on it that we could refer to! As with most antiques, it had great bones but needed some love. We found it at a beautiful house on Lake Michigan in Charlevoix.

There was an inscription written in the upper right corner of the

Wine Bar

Cabinet Before

Jim found this lonely cabinet in an antique shop in Kalamazoo.

Wine Bar After

It may have been used as a place to put silverware and linen napkins. The cabinet had definitely seen better days, but seeing its potential, Jim bought it with a thought in mind.

A wine bar, sparked by the top two drawers which lent themselves to lying bottles of wine horizontally, as they
should be kept. This required a bit of ingenuity. First, he removed the old tile top and stripped the entire cabinet free of it's prior red

Danish Chair

Danish Chair Before

Danish Chair After

I love taking on projects that involved such a lovely piece of furniture as this Danish cherry chair. The chair was extremely well made, thus also quite heavy, but after removing the cushion, I realized the weight wasn't in the wood, but in the cushion. Once that was removed, the chair itself was fairly light and easy to handle.

On the back of the chair was a stain, as if someone had spilled a darker stain on top of it and it made its way down the rear left leg. Someone tried to cover up the damage by adding glaze over the legs, which

Antique Oak China Cabinet

China Cabinet Before

China Cabinet After

We acquired this gorgeous oak China cabinet and immediately saw its potential. It was in almost perfect condition, with three mirrors, two glass shelves and two wood shelves. It had the original hardware and needed just a little work to expose its original glory.

Of course, as with all projects, I get "before" photos before beginning any project. Luckily, this large cabinet had wheels, which made it much easier to maneuver.

Other than minor scratches, the cabinet needed little other than touch-up and a good cleaning. I carefully removed the shelves, then unscrewed the angled shelving brackets, each made of brass, as well as the original brass handle and put them aside to be polished. The bowed glass door's molding had a few missing nails, so I used my pin nailer to reinforce the tiny 1/4" molding, holding the glass firmly in place. (I love my small nailer!) This process can be a bit dicy, because the molding holds the glass in place, therefore you don't have a lot of space in which to shoot nails, as the last thing you want to do it break that glass! Once that was done, I cleaned the interior glass first, then the exterior, which showed a lot of dust and smudges, likely from being stored.

Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Set

Table Before Refinishing

Table After Refinishing

Lots of photos for this job! A lovely woman from Madison Heights had acquired this mid-century modern dining table and chairs at a church rummage sale. She didn't want to tackle the refinish and re-upholstery job herself, so she called me. After she brought the set over, I was excited to get to work.

This was indeed a unique table and after a few hours of sanding, it proved to be quite the challenge. I decided to research it because I'd never seen anything quite like it. Lo and behold, it was a stranded bamboo table top!

Captain Chair Before

Captain Chair After

Out of curiosity, I researched the hardness of wood. As most people know, oak is among one of the hardest of woods, but on a scale of 0-5, oak ranks only 3.4 on the hardness scale, whereas bamboo ranks an astounding 4.7! "Ah," I thought, that's why it took so long to strip and sand this incredible surface. Four days later and it was finally ready to be refinished. I used a "natural" stain and three coats of polyurethane.

She didn't want the chairs refinished, only cleaned, so I used a cleaner specifically for wood and hand-polished each chair. The cushions were another story. The original cushions were, well, ugly. The fabric was typical of a 1950's decor, scratchy and quite uncomfortable. That could be because there was simply nothing left of the once-soft foam rubber bits. They had completely disintegrated into a substance resembling yellow-green dust. I'm so glad I removed them outside!

Seat Cushion After

Seat Cushion Before

After the fabric was removed, I peeled away the former "cushioned" seats with a large putty knife to separate them from the wood base, then scraped the powdery substance into the trash. The very worst seat crumbled so bad, it was all powder! One of the seat bottoms had to be replaced with new plywood because it was cracked and anyone other than a five-year-old would have eventually landed on the floor.

Chair Before

Chair After

Once all that was accomplished, I completed took apart the old seat cushions and used them as templates for the new seats. (I'm glad I did as seats tend to be slightly varied in size.) It was a long, tedious task to be sure, but well worth it as the new seats fit perfectly. I ended up surprising the customer by adding a corded edge, original to the first seat cushion. This not only made the edge look better, it gave the seats a defined, linear finish and wasn't too difficult to incorporate into the fabric layout.

My customer was very satisfied with the dining set and I must say, it looks terrific in her kitchen (see photo below.) I hope she enjoys this unique dining room set for many years to come.

Table and Chairs at Customer's Home