Antique Secretary

Secretary Before

Secretary After

A secretary desk such as this was quite popular in the
early 1900's, used for writing letters and keeping track of bills. Like many items of furniture of this era, it showed its age with missing sections of veneer here and there as well as the wood grain practically gone as aged finishes darken, hiding the lovely wood grain beneath. The lovely details on this secretary included a hand carved decorative rope on the front bottom, a curved drawer and fancy brass handles.

The interior had a built-in cubby section with its own little drawer, perfect for keeping postage stamps, pens and note pads. The back of the secretary was damaged, so we replaced it with a matching section of wood which matched the stain perfectly. This piece was a handful. Because of the detail, stripping was tediously time consuming, especially the rope scrollwork on the the drop down front and the edges of the shelf beneath it. It's hard to see this in the photo, but the shelf edges had three layers carved into it.

Secretary Open Before

Secretary Open After

Having a variety of woodcarving tools is a necessity to remove the old finish down to the bare wood. In order to do the job right, it was necessary to take it apart and strip the components separately. Not only does it look better, it's much easier than trying to get your hand inside those tiny compartments. It's also easier to polish the hardware, a little thing that has a large impact on the finished item. The difference is in the details.


This secretary was made of tiger oak, which has a lot of "movement" and visible grain. This wood looks gorgeous when refinished. One of the many joys of removing old varnish and stain is revealing the hidden wood grain just below the surface. Age darkens the original finishing, thus hiding the beauty of the wood. You never really know beautiful something is until you remove all those layers!

Antique Recliner

Recliner Before

My black buffet customer had a second piece of furniture she wanted

Recliner After

refinished, this antique recliner. This was an unusual piece since it had a brass bar that held the back of the chair in place. The way to turn this from a sitting position into a reclining position was to lower the bar manually. (This was built long before the days of La-Z-Boy!) It was made of solid tiger oak, very solid and sturdy.

We replaced the hinges with new brass ones. Someone had butchered the original hinges, cutting one of them to make it fit. We cleaned up the brass bar and polished it as well as the rest of the brass on the back of the chair. This piece had some great details, which were greatly accentuated upon completion.

Antique Secretary Desk & German Rocking Chair

Secretary After

Secretary Before

I had posted an ad for furniture restoration services and a man who lived near me called and asked if I was interested in restoring an antique secretary and a German rocking chair. He told me where he lived, so I said I could be over within a half hour. He had sold his house and was busy moving, so he didn't have time to work on these pieces. He'd already stripped off most of the paint from the secretary, but some paint remained as well as an very old layer of varnish. I gave him a price and told him I'd have them done in a couple of weeks. This is where experience is the best teacher. When I quoted him a price, I should have tripled it because the secretary alone took me about 3 weeks to strip and refinish. I had to remove the back and get inside all the slots, very difficult to do with such a dark piece of wood and such small spaces. But the final results