Umbrella Stand Shines Again

Umbrella Stand Before

This is an unusual piece of furniture to be sure. We did work for a man who had bought two items of furniture from us and had already had us refinish a table for him. He had picked this up and wanted to see if we could do something to improve its looks. What is it? Well,

Umbrella Stand After

it's a very unusual Umbrella Stand, made out of about three different types of wood; maple, pine and mahogany. The front is a curved brass sheet which was badly marred and tarnished. The photo on the left shows the one spot Jim rubbed out the brass, revealing what promised to be a shiny metal buried underneath years of oxidation.

The problem was that not only was it tarnished, there was a pretty decent gouge in it as well. Hmmm...what to do. Well, the first thing is to just take it apart and then figure out how to put it together. That's right, we don't always know exactly what we'll find once something's been taken apart or how it's going to go together again. Working with old furniture presents many challenges and that's just one aspect of it. The other is determining which course of action to take and in what order. It seemed a logical thing to take it apart and clean the brass sheet separately from refinishing the wood section.

Jim was able to not only remove the tarnish, but lightly sand the entire surface of the brass and somehow, miraculously, removed the dent! Our customer was astounded as to how great this piece turned out (as were we). I wasn't sure it was fixable, but as you can see, the piece now shines, its former ugliness replaced by a beautiful, unique piece that will showcase this gentleman's hallway for many years to come. You just never know what you're going to find underneath all that grime! Give an old piece a second chance and send it to us at Finale, the experts at furniture love and restoration.