Posted in Furniture, tagged chair, Danish oil, restore, sanding, upholstery on 22/07/2016| 4 Comments »
It’s taken me 5 years to get around to restoring this chair. It’s the third of four pieces of furniture I bought in Tarrington, near Hamilton, in June 2011. (The others are a wooden chest , a kitchen chair and a three-legged side table that’s still on my to-do list.)
The chair was described by the shop owner as being oak. I could tell it wasn’t but it was solid and I liked the proportions and the carving on the backrest, though not so much the upholstery job.
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Posted in Furniture, tagged beeswax, Danish oil, orbital sander, paint stripping, restore, sanding on 22/06/2014| 4 Comments »
The cupboard I bought at Mt Buffalo last month is now restored. It took quite a bit of effort for a piece of furniture that is – honestly – not the most brilliant example of cabinetmaking.
It’s hard to imagine what this cupboard would have looked like when it was originally built. There are tell-tale signs that it wasn’t ever intended to be a fine woodworking piece. The cabinet top has a narrow strip of joined wood running across the back edge, as though someone ran out of the right timber, and the whole top has been nailed straight onto the carcass. There are odd gaps and bad joins around the base of the cabinet and the interior varnish has been applied sloppily.
At some stage at least one of the shelves must have been refitted. And the door looks like it got opened back too far one day and it split – it was repaired with glue and nails. Still, the cupboard is part of the Mt Buffalo Chalet story and that makes me happy.
Posted in Furniture, Other interesting things, tagged clearing auction, cupboard, furniture cleaner, Mt Buffalo Chalet, restore on 17/05/2014| 8 Comments »
Some view! Mt Buffalo early on a cold Sunday morning, clouds filling the Ovens valley and the sun shining brilliantly up on the plateau. As if that wasn’t enough excitement, the Mt Buffalo Chalet clearing auction was about to get underway.
The first I knew about the clearing auction was from an article in The Age last month. I’ve since done a bit more reading. The chalet has had an interesting history. It dates back to 1910 and was ‘the epitome of luxury’ apparently (though the guests who scored rooms with no heating probably wouldn’t have agreed). It closed in 2007 after it came close to being destroyed by the bushfires that took out large parts of the national park in December 2006-January 2007.
Posted in Furniture, tagged Danish oil, metho, methylene chloride, paint scrapers, paint stripper, paint stripping, restore, rimu, steelwool, stool on 27/09/2013| 8 Comments »
OK, so it’s another story about paint stripping. If you can’t be bothered reading it, at least enjoy the slideshow at the end.
I seem to have picked the simplest job ever for demonstrating how to strip paint off furniture. This old stool had just 1 coat of red paint. That’s it. Not even an undercoat.
I bought it from Bay Country Antiques in Waipawa, New Zealand (and got it home in my suitcase). The wood is probably rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum), according to the guy in the shop. Don’t ask me, I only know kauri.
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Posted in Furniture, tagged beeswax, bench seat, Danish oil, Inverloch, orbital sander, restore, sandpaper, second-hand on 09/03/2013| Leave a Comment »
It’s been a nice change working on a piece of furniture that didn’t need pulling apart and rebuilding. The bench seat I bought in Inverloch just needed sanding, oiling and waxing. Although, really, a lot of sanding, followed by a sore neck and sore shoulders.
The seat was superficially weathered but it was really sturdy. It had come from a deceased estate down Inverloch way and, given that there were a number of homemade pieces among the contents, the owner must have been into making furniture out of second-hand timbers.
The timber’s definitely blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) – the colour and the grain are wonderful. (Here’s some info on blackwood on the Victorian Department of Primary Industries website.)
Then …
… and now
Posted in Furniture, tagged bench seat, Inverloch, restore, second-hand on 10/02/2013| 3 Comments »
Inverloch on a warm weekend in February is pretty fantastic, as I’ve just discovered. Swimming along the inlet on an incoming tide made me feel like a sprint specialist. (If you could see the video footage you’d agree; it was like cheating.) And diving under big dumping waves at the surf beach on Saturday afternoon brought back vivid teenage memories of riding scary waves on surf mats at Portsea and Gunnamatta.
Driving out of town late this morning it was pure serendipity that led us to an excellent second-hand place. We were looking for one particular store but we turned down the wrong street and found something even better – the Inverloch Bargain Centre. What a place! Not much to look at from the street. In fact it’s pretty junky – old bikes, broken furniture and rough sheds stuffed with tables with no tops and chairs with two legs. Inside the main building it got much better. Floor to ceiling excitement for those of us who like a restoration project.
I bought a simple bench seat for $20. It looks like it’s been left out in the weather – the timber’s all silvery grey and the grain is quite open. It’s possibly blackwood, which would be brilliant, and it’s also incredibly heavy. Some serious work with the orbital sander is coming up, maybe next weekend. Of course, I’ve got no idea where I’m going to put the thing when I’m done. (Have a look at the final result.)
If you’re down Inverloch way, check out the Inverloch Bargain Centre at 36 Bear Street. (The other second-hand furniture place is in nearby Cashin Street. Worth a look but much more expensive and most of the furniture has already been restored, which is no fun at all really.)
Posted in Furniture, tagged chair, dowel, restore on 10/01/2013| 8 Comments »
[read Part 1]
Here’s the second half of the chair restoration story. I took a lot of photos and I’m gonna use them.
The chair had originally been nailed at the two points where the long outer uprights of the chair back passed through the side rungs. The nails would have helped hold the uprights in position. I didn’t want to use nails again. Instead I used dowels. Dowels can easily be drilled out if the chair needs repairing at some time in the future. Removing nails just makes a mess. The person who built the chair should have got a rap over the knuckles.
This is what I did:
Posted in Furniture, tagged chair, dowel, restore on 04/01/2013| 2 Comments »
I found this old chair in the same second-hand shop as the wooden chest I wrote about a few months ago. The chair was sitting on the nature strip, propping up the ‘now open’ sign. It was exactly what I’d been on the lookout for in every antique place on the road from Melbourne to Port Fairy.
The paint work was a mess and there was a serious break in one of the front legs, but the chair was otherwise in good condition. How old is it? Just guessing, maybe 1930s, maybe older.
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Posted in Furniture, tagged chest, restore on 19/10/2012| 6 Comments »
In June last year I came across a fantastic second-hand store in a small town called Tarrington, near Hamilton in Victoria. One of those places crammed with a mess of old stuff you could spend hours sifting through. My best find was a wooden chest, probably dating back to the 1860s or thereabouts.
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Third bit from the right 