Headley & Farmer Co. Antique Trunk Restoration (Cedar Lining)

This project falls into our 'repair and restoration' umbrella. We mainly do upholstery, here at Lefebvre's Upholstery, but we also do refinishing and repairs. There are a lot of projects that don't get photographed. This was was interesting.

This trunk was built as a vertical standing trunk, with an extending clothes rod. The client wanted the trunk cleaned up a bit (gold and black paint touched-up, ratty cloth removed where loose, missing nails or rivets replaced) and he wanted the clothes rod removed, and for the interior of the trunk to be lined with cedar, for use as a cedar chest.





You can see that this end (the top) has a curved hump in it.



AFTER:









The borders of the remaining canvas near the edges were lightly trimmed, and painted black before the new cedar lining was installed. The same was done for the lid.







Nice tight joints and corners.

Victorian Side Chair - Cream and Yellow Diamond Print

A very typical and beautifully carved Walnut chair. The seat had collapsed, and the fabric was changed.

Before:



After:

Antique Victorian Sideboard Restoration

Apologies for the long hiatus since the last updates. There is a backlog of over a dozen projects to post, but it takes a long time to prepare the photos and posts.

This was a sideboard that we restored a while back (end of 2015). It had a lot of veneer problems, shrinkage cracks, loose sections, damage to the finish, and all the drawer bottoms were broken. There were also issues with worn drawer runners.

I don't have any proper before and after photos, because the piece came into the shop in pieces. This type of sideboard is called a "pedestal sideboard". Originally it had a back-splash, probably with carved accents. The centre drawer has the original retailer's label from Hewetson & Milner London (at Totterham road, indicating a date after 1882). In addition to this, the brass hinges were stamped with the maker's name William Tonks & Sons (active between 1851 - 1891).

Here are some in-progress photos of the repairs.



The shellac has bloomed due to poor storage conditions from moisture.



Some of the MANY veneer repairs.









A few of the small mouldings were missing, and had to be replicated.



A crack caused from the sub-frame assembly.



This was the worst section.





All of the thin wood drawer bottom needed repairs. Some had previous repairs, and some had thick masking tape applied to them. The bottoms are barely 1/4" thick, and they are quite fragile.



You can see the label on this half of the centre drawer.



The top has several worn and damaged areas in the finish. This side also had some damage to both front corners, so we replaced a full thin sprip and re-cut the cove profile.



The base with all the veneer repairs, AFTER repairs and refinishing.



Finished sideboard.















The top is a solid wood board of mahogany. It's about 5/8" thick, and 2 feet wide. The length was around 6 feet.



In the client's home:

Miniature Morris Chair - Beige Vinyl

Here is a very unusual child's Morris style chair. The frame on it is birch, and it has an adjustable back rest just like on larger Morris chairs.

The owner wanted the chair refinished in a slightly darker shade (the chair had been stripped and refinished sometime in the past), and a new cover in a lather-look beige vinyl. We also repainted the adjusting back rod in flat black.

Before:







After: