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| Card Table Before |
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| Card Table After |
Every once in a while we get a totally unique piece of furniture that is one in a million. One of the many aspects of furniture restoration is the wide variety of items that come our way. It’s always a surprise! At times the surprise comes when we see it. Other times the surprise comes after we remove the years and years of grime to reveal the beauty beneath it. This antique card table with a checkerboard center was such a piece.
It’s hard to know origins of furniture, such as how old an item is, where it was made, what kind of wood is was made from. We have seen mostly oak, walnut, cherry and even some more exotic woods such as bloodwood and olive wood. At times we’ve seen wood we can’t easily identify. With this unique table we quickly realized it was made of many types of wood combined to create a work of art which ended with a center design in a checkerboard or chess table.
However, it was completely covered with years of grime, dirt and who knows what else. Hidden away in a garage for over thirty years, this table was likely overlooked and became part of the back storage of the space it occupied until my customer yanked it out with the intention of getting it refinished. It looked like a major undertaking since there were many pieces of wood missing that would have to be replaced as well as all that grim removed with stripper and carefully sanded so that none of the wood would be destroyed in the process. And yes, each piece of wood you see has been individually placed into the table! This alone makes it a highly unique work of art.
Once stripped, the gorgeous wood beneath was exposed. It was comprised of maple, bird’s eye maple, walnut and mahogany. Since many of the original tiny pieces were missing, it was necessary to cut and carefully place each missing piece in its place so that it blended in with the table and look as if they were always there. As you can imagine, this was a very time-consuming process. After all those missing pieces were installed and glued, it was then stained and protected with four coats of strong polyurethane so it will hold up for another one hundred years at least. A timeless beauty can say, “Checkmate.”
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| Card Table Before |
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| Card Table After |
