Restoration Gallery

Below are some small write-ups and photographs of a small sample of restoration projects we’ve worked on.
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Victorian ‘Balloon Back’ Dining Chair – Full Restoration.

This chair was in a bad way(!).
Restoration involved fabricating new side rails from solid Beech, new mouldings all around from solid Mahogany, repair to one of the turned legs, replacement of all four corner blocks and french polishing. After the repairs, the seat was also fully reupholstered.

This image shows the chair with a mocked-up rail in place. We did this to check that the new rails would looks right with the rest of the chair before we cut out the real ones.

Here are the beech blocks with templates glued to the tops. These will be shaped and used to make the new replacement rails.

Here is the chair with the new rails in place

We had to shape new mouldings to go onto the new rails. These were fashioned from mahogany to match the rest of the chairs show wood. Lots of clamps were needed to attach the new moulding properly to the serpentine front rail as you can see!

Close-up of the front moulding with the clamps removed.

Close-up of the front moulding after we had stained, distressed and french polished it to match the colour and wear of the rest of the chair.

Side moulding lightly distressed and french polished.

A piece was missing from one of the turned legs. Here you can see the new timber glued in place before we started shaping it.

Ready for colour matching and polishing.

New rails, mouldings, leg repair, new corner blocks – all aged, colour-matched, french polished and waxed. next – upholstery…

Mid Century Dining Table – Strip & Re-Finish.

Stripping down the old finish ready for oiling.

Victorian, Oak sideboard – Full Restoration.

This project involved lots of repairs and finishing work. We are only covering a few of the repairs here, mainly focusing on some of the wooden embellishments which had to be fabricated or repaired.

Here’s a shot of the sideboard before restoration.

Many of the fretted elements were missing or severely damaged. We traced the existing ones to make templates to cut replacements.

Fretted replacement held in place while the glue dries.

Several carved scrolls were also missing. We had to carve replacements by hand.

As the originals were also hand carved they varied in size considerably so we had to match each one.

Some replacement moulding sections also needed to be fabricated.

One of the doors with all the replacement elements in situ, ready for colour matching and polishing.

Part of one of the turned columns was missing so here we had to let-in new timber and carve it to blend.

Several areas of the ‘egg & dart’ top edge were severely damaged. We let in new timber and hand carved to blend.

Close-up of one of the ‘egg & dart’ repairs.

The original french polished finish on the top surface was degraded and flakey. We wanted to retain as much of the patination as possible so in this case we removed the old finish where possible mechanically using perspex.

G-Plan Nesting Tables – Strip & Re-Finish

BEFORE: Ring marks, water stains, tired finish…

AFTER: Stripped, sanded, stained and re-finished in Danish oil.

Pedestal Table – Leg Repair

Part way through the colour matching process

4 Mid Century, Teak Dining chairs – Joints & Re-finish.

These had a horrible old brush-on varnish finish on them and most of the joints were really loose. They also had two broken seats that we had to replace and they needed re-upholstering…