Restoration

Let's take of tour

some past adventures

Our first little problem is this Italian chest.

It suffered from less than

perfect climate control.

The owner bought it about three years ago.

Gradually, the paint began to lose adhesion

until it was in danger of coming completely off

its ground.

This paint was in such

delicate shape that a stiff

breeze would have knocked

paint chips off. So we decided

to build a box to transport it in.

We simply lifted the chest onto

the box bottom and assembled

the box around it.

As you'll see in this close-up,

the problem is pretty severe.

This is the top drawer,

showing plenty of just

barely hangers-on.

So we went to work, with Q-tips

and artist brushes and

teased all the little loose

flakes and chips up and

worked glue size in under them

and flattened them back down.

Lots of well directed light

and steadiness of hands were

required.

A lot of hours later,

and we DID count them,

we were ready for

some coats of more

glue size and then

shellac. And then,

BABOOM, we had a

much happier piece,

smiling at left.

But long before that happened,

this next thing happened.

Although the photo at left

appears to be a "before",

this project actually began as

a pile of parts in the corner. It remained

a pile for a good year before the owner

decided in which direction to proceed.

I have to learn to take pictures

of those piles.

Although lots of small

pieces were broken off

and missing, the major components were there

and in reasonably

good shape. Pretty much

everything that appears

light in this photo

is replacement,

including two of

the carved scenes

in the back splats.

What you see here is pretty typical

of the extent of the repair on all four

chairs. The owner brought the closed

weave cane webbing in from China

along with the chairs.

The owner of these chairs wanted to preserve

what was left of the

old heavily built lacquer which was a beautiful

rich red wine color.

So we added to and enhanced the existing

finish to achieve the

look and feel of a

well used but

very sturdy old chair.

The ivory lattice work in the

back splat was left natural.

Everyone was happy!

Our next series is an antique console

pictured here without its marble top.

The task at hand was to reproduce the

missing flower garland under the right

side apron.

Console with missing garland.

Console with newly carved

flower garland installed.

We carved the new garland

in basswood. It shows very

white against the aged antique

white paint. It needs painting

and careful dusting of highlights.

The finished product looked good.

We found that a very,

very light brown mottle of color

worked well on top of some gesso

and a couple of coats of white

paint.

Of course, there's more!


This mantel was bought in France to replace a pre-existing mantel on this wall. The problem: It was a bit of a mess and it didn't cover the empty space left. From this front view, you can see that it needs to grow on the inside to cover the stone surround.	From this view from the right side, you can see that it's a little short of height and width all around. The designer came up the following solution: Keep the basic mantel the way it is and add to it. Make a new longer and deeper top piece. Add to the interior dimensions, add to the width outside and make a higher plinth.

We also needed to reproduce lots of missing applique on the face. For that we took molds of the remaining pieces and used them to patch in wherever we needed to.	A new top was made with a bead detail that picked up from the original mouldings. We dealt with the overall lack of width by adding bolection mouldings to both stiles. Again we picked up more carved bead detail in a smaller size. Then we covered the interior surround by continuing the stiles and rail in width. Adding a new higher plinth block gave us the right vertical dimension. After all that was done, we matched up the patina, added white paint remnants and finished up on installation. As of this picture, we were waiting for a wall covering person to patch up the tiny voids that remained.