About Furniture
Restoration
Rather than buy new furniture, why not restore the old pieces you've had for years? Not only is restoring furniture economical, but it can make you feel good about preserving something that would have been stored or discarded, making it even better. When you renovate furniture, you're placing renewed value on old household furnishings that were formerly useless, as well as uniting the present with the past. Does this Spark an idea?
Identification
Furniture restoration entails redoing old pieces of furniture, making them useful and more beautiful. The restoration process restores old furniture to its original quality. Sometimes all that's needed is a cleaning. More of a project, refinishing is a form of restoration, dealing more with the functionality of furniture, such as repairing legs on a coffee table. Besides repairing, refinishing may also include stripping off the old paint or finish, in addition to removing blemishes and stains.
Considerations
Before restoring a piece of furniture, consider if it's worth saving. This depends on several factors. What's the condition of the furniture? What's the style? Will it take more money to restore it than to buy new furniture? Should you refinish or restore? Sometimes all it takes is a good cleaning and wax removal to make an old piece of furniture look new again. Also, consider and understand the fundamentals of aging woods and finishes. What's typical of one type of wood doesn't necessarily apply to another.
Warning
Make sure you have the proper tools before starting. If you don't already have the needed supplies, it may not be worth the investment unless you plan to do a lot of furniture restoration. Also, when selecting old furniture to restore, don't choose ornately carved pieces as it's very difficult to work within the tiny cracks and crevices. Be sure not to take on projects where there are missing parts or the furniture is very damaged. Stay away from furniture with French polish. This finish is challenging to apply, but easy to remove. Work only in an area where the lighting is adequate. If the only time you have to paint or stain is at night in your garage, be sure to check your work in daylight.
Prevention/Solution
When beginning a project, it's easy to forget about logic. You can be determined to use a special polish or stain and just as convinced to remove every blemish. But if it's filled with black ink stains, it's better just to paint over it, covering the stain rather than trying to remove a flaw that's impossible to eliminate. Sometimes it's the little things that cause the greatest damage. When in doubt, seek professional help.
Theories/Speculation
Various theories abound in the world of furniture restoration. For example, some people hold the theory that stripping furniture to bare wood eliminates a piece of furniture's history, fearing restoration stops the link of the past for future generations. However, when features of a piece of furniture, such as an original finish, have already been lost, the furniture isn't worth keeping if not restored. In this case there's no option but to remove the remaining old paint, substitute a natural finish or paint in a way that matches the period of the furniture.
Misconceptions
Some homeowners may be hesitant to restore old furniture, fearing it will lose its value. However, if your furniture was made after the American Civil, War it won't lose its value. In most cases, it appreciates quicker when brought back to its original beauty, although there are several exceptions. Identify the piece as historical or non-historical. Another misconception is that wood finishes need to be fed oil. Although a wood finish can lose oils with time, you don't need to feed the finish more oils. Regardless of what you do, a wood's finish will ultimately deteriorate with use.
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