Finale Furniture Restoration Services, LLC: cabriole legs

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Display Cabinet

This display cabinet is my very first restoration project. I bought it at an estate sale nearby. While it's not an antique, it's a great reproduction and I particularly liked its cabriole legs and clean lines. It had a broken door, but otherwise, it was in great shape. I repaired the broken door (at the pivot point) and added a mirror to the interior back of the cabinet. Then I refinished the exterior with red mahogany stain and gave it two coats of semi-gloss polyurethane.

I ended up selling to a woman who had just moved into a house and needed a little cabinet or table for her living room. She was so happy to have found the perfect little cabinet and especially loved the mirror in the back! I also painted the tarnished gold knobs to a shiny silver, which I felt tied in nicely with the mirror. It also added a little "bling," giving this display cabinet a touch of elegance, while maintaining its functionality. Is it any wonder I get excited when I find these great little pieces of furniture??

Jim’s Background

Jim has many years of experience in both woodworking and metal work. He retired in 2020 from a company where he was an industrial painter. He’d always been interested in woodcrafting and creating things from his imagination. Since he retired, he has been able to spend more time helping me with furniture work. His input is invaluable since he does the bigger repair work as well as making things for projects. He finds creative solutions to unique problems that are part of the restoration process. Jim and I both have completely renovated our home in St. Clair Shores, where we resided for 24 years prior to moving to Marine City in 2016. That renovation was a testament to our problem solving abilities that transferred well to restoring and refinishing furniture. If you know how to take something apart, you have a better insight as to how to put it back together again, but not without careful planning and attention to detail. That’s what makes us a great team!