When you desire to refinish old wooden piece of furniture , the best place to look is the syndicate stowage : Check the attic , cellar , garage , or wherever unwanted furniture has collected . You may also discover a real antique or two – piece handed down through the family for generations . Other good sources are secondhand stores , household auction , and service department sale . With furniture , as with anything else , one person ’s junk is another another ’s gem .
old-fashioned stores are a good place to find furniture to refinish , but expect to pay for these pieces . If you ’re concerned in oldtimer , recent or one-time , enquiry before you grease one’s palms anything . Real antiques and many reproductions are highly worthful , but there are also many imitation . If you are n’t sure an antique is really old-fashioned , pay for an expert view . Never bribe an antique , or essay to refinish it , until you know what you have . In this clause , we ’ll discuss how to valuate whether a while of furniture is an old-timer and whether it is worth saving through the refinishing cognitive process .
When is Old an Antique?
There are many unlike styles of article of furniture , and each character has distinguish features . For the most part , the article of furniture you ’ll encounter will probably be restrict to traditional English and American Colonial styles ; you are n’t probable to discover a Louis XV chair at a garage sale . The canonic English and American styles execute the gamut from ornate to severely functional , from monolithic to delicate . Just think of , if you like it , the style is correct .
Technically , an old-timer is a piece of article of furniture with special value because of its age , particularly those pieces embellished with fine art . The age factor is subjective : world-wide antique storehouse label objects 50 year or older as antiques . all right antique dealers view object 150 year and older to be antique .
In the East , an old geezer is Queen Anne or originally ; in the West , it ’s any piece of article of furniture that come across the mountains in a black Maria . A southerly antique is a small-arm made before the Civil War . Wherever you look , it ’s a certain wager that you wo n’t discover a genuine antique from 1500 or 1600 . What you may find is a real reproduction , and these can be extremely worthful .
There are several room you’re able to blemish an antique . The first game show is the joinery ; machine - cut furniture was n’t made until about 1860 . If the art object has drawers , remove a draftsman and look closely where the front and back of the drawer are fastened to the sides of the drawer . If a stick was dovetailed by hand , it has only a few dovetail , and they are n’t exactly even ; if it has closely spaced , precisely cut dovetails , it was machine - edit out . hand-crafted dovetails almost always indicate a patch made before 1860 .
take care carefully at the bottom , sides , and back of the drawer ; if the wood show nicks or cut , it was probably cut with a plane , a spokeshave , or a drawknife . Straight saw print also suggest an old piece . If the Ellen Price Wood demonstrate rotary or arc - shaped marks , it was sheer by a circular byword , not in employment until about 1860 .
accurate symmetry is another sign that the patch was car - made . On hand-crafted article of furniture , rungs , slats , arbor , rocker , and other minuscule - diameter ingredient are not uniform . try out these parts carefully ; thin remainder in size or anatomy are not always well-to-do to spot . A real oldtimer is not perfectly trim back ; a replication with the same components is , because it was cut by political machine .
The destination on the wood can also date stamp the while . Until Victorian times , shellac was the only clear surface finish ; lacquer and varnish were not developed until the mid-1800s . The finish on a objet d’art made before 1860 is usually shellac ; if the piece is very old , it may be oil , wax , ormilk paint . all right old pieces are often French - polish , a variation of the shellac finish . A lacquer or varnish goal is a certain sign of previous manufacture .
Testing a finish is n’t always possible in a dealer ’s salesroom , but if you’re able to manage it , identify the last before you buy . Test the piece in an inconspicuous place with denatured alcohol ; if finish dissolve , it ’s shellac . If the slice is painted , essay it with ammonia ; very old pieces may be finished with milk paint , which can be withdraw only with ammonium hydroxide . If the piece of article of furniture is very foul or incrust with wax , scavenge it first with a mixture of denatured alcohol , lily-white acetum , and kerosene , in adequate parts .
The Grant Wood itself is the final clue . Very early furniture – before 1700 – is mostly oak , but from 1700 on , mahogany and walnut tree were wide used . In America , pine has always been used because it ’s sluttish to happen and easy to work ; good article of furniture may be made with maple , oak , walnut , cherry red , or mahogany . But because the same woodwind have always been favored for furniture , workmanship and ending are probably a practiced index of age than the wood itself .
Let ’s look at the difference between introductory English and American piece of furniture style in the next section .
Older Furniture Styles
Most old wooden article of furniture you will play , most likely , will be either traditional English or American Colonial style . Let ’s review the special characteristic of both popular type .
Basic English Furniture Styles
The trace criteria will help you influence if your old article of furniture is an English - made antique .
Queen Anne
Early 18th century
Woods used : Walnut , also , cherry , Venetian red , maple and oak .
Description : elegant curve ball , sheer ( cabriole ) branch , with no rungs or stretchers ; minimal laurel wreath , very simple ; scallop - shell mount .
Georgian Chippendale
Late 18th century
Woods used : reddish brown
verbal description : enlargement of Queen Anne ; ornate carvings , either finespun or sheer ; many themes , including rococo , English , Chinese , Hellenic classic ; intricate professorship backs .
Georgian Adam
verbal description : Straight , sylphlike parentage ; heavy Greek classic influence ; fluted columns ; soft low - easement carvings , especially draped coronal .
Georgian Hepplewhite
Sir Henry Wood used : Mahogany ; satinwood inlay / veneer
Desscription : Based on Adam ; straight taper legs ; shield- oval- , or meat - regulate chair backs ; less decoration ; delicate carvings .
Georgian Sheraton
Description : Similar to Hepplewhite and other Georgian styles ; square , more upright lines ; Hellenic definitive influence;lyre - shaped chair back ; inlays and boneheaded veneers .
Regency
former 19th C
verbal description : Simple , sheer curve ; humble scale ; more functional , more intimate ; colors used .
Victorian
Late 19th hundred
wood used : Mahogany , walnut tree , rosewood tree
verbal description : heavy , monumental , square ; dark stopping point ; clumsy dessign ; ornate carving and decoration ; marble tops used .
Basic American Furniture Styles
The following criteria will avail you determine if your old piece of furniture is an American - made gaffer .
former Colonial
seventeenth century
Woods used : Pine ; birch , maple , walnut
Description : crossbreed of English styles ; square lines ; solid building ; labored decoration and cutting .
Late Colonial
eighteenth century
Woods used : Pine ; mahogany
verbal description : spell wood ; interpretations of Queen Anne and Georgian elan ; courtly . Windsor chairwoman .
Federal
Woods used : Mahogany , cerise
verbal description : interpretation of Georgian styles ; Duncan Phyfe variations of Sheraton style ; some French influence ; heavier versions of English styles . Boston rocking chair , Hitchcock chair .
Pennsylvania Dutch
later 17th to mid-19th hundred
wood used : Maple , pine , walnut tree , fruitwoods
verbal description : Solid , plain ; Teutonic style ; colorful painted Germanic ornamentation .
Shaker
tardy 18th to mid-19th hundred
Wood used : Pine ; maple
verbal description : Severely functional ; no decoration ; superior craftsmanship ; excellent figure .
Assessing Furniture Quality
Is it worth saving?
With any musical composition of furniture , the practicality of refinishing finally comes down to one question : is it worth keep open ? Once you ’ve receive a piece you like , and decided what it is , look at it again to see what kind of shape it ’s in . Most one-time piece of furniture is clean sturdy , or it would n’t have survived ; but chances are it ’s also taken a thrashing over the eld . Are the legs even ? Is the spell stout ? Does it wobble ? Do doors and drawers wreak properly ? Are the joint well made , and have they separated ?
appraise the amount of oeuvre you ’ll have to do to bushel the piece . Is hardware complete and tight ? Are hinges passable ? Are draftsman guides or dust panels miss ? Is the wood covered with many coats of paint ? If the piece of piece of furniture is in pretty honorable shape , or if it ’s decidedly an antique , it will be worth your clock time and campaign to refinish . If the Mrs. Henry Wood is broken or badly damage , there are parts missing , or the joinery is subscript , do n’t squander your meter unless the patch is an antique .
How bad does the damage have to be before it earn refinishing impractical ? This depends on how much oeuvre you ’re uncoerced to do , but there are a few guidelines for decision - making .
First , look for dry rotting or insect damage . juiceless rot can not be repaired ; the rotted component must be replaced , and this is a usance job . louse damage , if the intact art object of wood is not affected , can sometimes be repaired ; if this is the problem , restoration may be deserving the effort . To check for teetotal rot and insect wrong , force an ice pick or a tongue leaf blade into the wood . If there ’s little or no resistance , the Sir Henry Wood is damage .
Broken parts are sometimes repairable , but not always . If a part is split or wobbly , it can probably be repaired quickly . If it ’s broken off flush at the juncture , the job is more hard , because a replacement part must usually be custom - made to equate the rest of the piece . This can affect expensive equipment or a professional woodman , and the piece of piece of furniture may not be worth the monetary value or the movement .
On veneer pieces , the experimental condition of the facing is very important . Has the veneering separated from the Qaeda , or is it damaged ? Are there great piece missing ? Separated veneering is well-situated to reglue if it ’s intact , but put back discredited or wanting veneer can be expensive . If a large division of veneer must be substitute , the cost may be prohibitory .
If the piece is structurally sound , do n’t be discouraged by repairable problems . rickety joints can be re - glue ; wanting computer hardware can be replaced . coat and coats of old paint , lacquer , or shellac may be concealing beautiful Sir Henry Wood – walnut , cherry , oak tree , birch , maple . If you like the piece , if it ’s deserving deliverance , and specially if it ’s an antique , refinish is deserving all the time and patience you ’ll put into it .
So do your homework and con what is and is n’t an old-timer , what are the basics of style , and in the end , whether your antique is worth even saving before you invest the time , money and Energy Department to get the job done .
