Some Recently Completed Pieces

19th Century English Cherry Dressing Table

I have developed a bit of a backlog of photos of completed work over the past couple of months. In an effort to catch up I am showcasing some of the more interesting pieces that have come through the shop recently. Below I will describe the pieces and the work we did to them.

1. English Lath Back Windsor Chair

 This was one of my favorite chairs to ever come through the shop. It is a Lath Back Windsor made from various woods including beech and elm. It was made sometime in the middle of the 19th century. 

These chairs are great, they have great form and are very comfortable. This one had loosened up so I glued the loose joinery. The wear on the chair was wonderful, especially on the arms, so we simply cleaned and waxed the finish.

2. Four Ladderback Chairs
 
These chairs are pretty run of the mill, and were probably made around 50 years ago. I chose these to showcase the great job my caner did on the rush seats! Beyond the seats, I glued the loose joinery, and cleaned and waxed the finish.

3. Parquet Table with Draw Leaves
I have written about draw leaf table before on this blog. All of the examples that come through the shop seem to be from the early part of the 20th century. This one was made form European walnut and beech. It had a French country style, and was probably made in France or possibly another country on the European continent. This table was in pretty rough shape, so we removed the finish and refinished it with a French Polish finish.
  

 4. Walnut Breadboard End Table 
This table came from Switzerland and was made from old boards of European walnut. That being said, it was made fairly recently. I liked this table a lot because it reminded me of the first dining table I made, which was also of walnut. The finish was in bad shape, so we refinished this with a French Polish finish.
 

 5. English Cherry Dressing Table
This was a sweet little table, made from European cherry in the early part of the 19th century. Despite the cabinetmakers attempts to use good straight grained wood, the back legs had warped severely! Because it was stable and there is no real way to fix this, I left them as is. This piece was refinished with a French Polish finish.

6. Walnut Drop Leaf Table
This table had some beautiful walnut veneer, as seen in the photo below. It was made in the 1930s and I refinished it with a French Polish and found a new walnut knob for the drawer.

7. Reproduction John Shaw Four Drawer Chest
This chest was a lovely reproduction of  a chest made by John Shaw (1745- 1829), a cabinet maker from Annapolis, Maryland. The reproduction was made by Biggs Furniture of Richmond, Virginia. The chest, like the original, had beautiful crotch mahogany on the drawer fronts. Quite a lovely piece, reproduction or not!

8. Mahogany Display Stand
 
This stand had a lot of work put into it. The top was edged with inlayed banding, some of which was missing and we had to recreate. We also glued the loose joinery, replaced some of the glass, covered the bottom with felt, and refinished the entire case.
  

 

 

I am sure I have more photos like these so I will probably be putting together another post soon of pieces that were recently restored.

Painted Chairs (ca 1990)

The Completed Chairs

One of the things we have started doing this year on occasion is to paint furniture for customers. We were hired earlier this year to paint a set of eight chairs and reupholster them as well. The chairs were around 25 years old and the customer loved them, but wanted a color change. Below is a photo of two of the eight (originally they were painted  yellow, red, and eggplant). The rest of the photos show the painted chairs with the new upholstery.

Hitchcock Style High Chair 3 (1970)

The Completed High Chair

Deja Vu all over again! One of the interesting side effects of writing this blog is that several of my posts have been read by people with a similar or, in this case, the exact piece of furniture. These customers then contact me, often with questions, or in some cases, to restore one just like the one that I did for another customer.

One of these reoccurring themes in my work was a high chair made in the style of furniture made by Lambert Hitchcock. These "Hitchcock High Chairs" were made in the 20th century (I am guessing around 1970). All of the examples I have worked on are maple with black paint on the majority of the chair. The crest rail is stenciled in the manner of Hitchcock chairs of the 19th century. I have yet to work on a white painted version, but they do exist.

I do not know if it was the 1970's incarnation of the Hitchcock Chair Company that made these chairs or if they were made by another company. I do know that in most cases, I can restore them and people from far and wide are contacting me to do so. So without further adieu, I bring you the third Hitchcock high chair to grace my shop.

I only got one photo of the chair as it came into the shop, and it was only a photo of the seat. The finish had peeled off of the unpainted portion of the seat and tray.

The process of restoration can be read in the links below to my earlier posts. The only thing we did differently was to finish the natural portions without staining them, which looked quite nice!

Hitchcock High Chair No.1:
http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2011/06/hitchcock-style-high-chair-ca1970.html

Hitchcock High Chair No.2:
http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2011/08/hitchcock-style-high-chair-2-1970.html

If anyone is looking for one of these chairs, I have one that I would love to sell. It needs a bit of work, but I can do that. Please feel free to email or call me at 703-727-5691 if you are interested!

Plastic Injection Molded Chair (2014)

The Completed Chair

The Plastic Chair. It is everywhere. Gracing the lawns of America. Trainspotters in Sandy Hook, Maryland keep their soot covered chairs close to the tracks. Every Metro stop in Potomac, Maryland has a plastic courtesy chair probably placed by a good Samaritan. New, old, clean, dirty, broken, whole, they are everywhere.

Tracing the history of this ubiquitous piece of furniture in the minds of some goes back to the mid 20th century. Going back further two distinct ideas were formed that later coalesced. The first was the formed chair.

This innovation can be seen as far back as the mid 19th century, in the furniture of John Henry Belter of New York, NY. Belter created the backs for his chairs by laminating veneers of Rosewood over a shaped form. after the glue had set, the laminations retained the form. Belter would also turn the orientation of the laminations to give the backs strength, In essence creating the first plywood (although out of much fancier woods than used today.)

Below is an example of the formed back of a Belter chair:

Here is a link to a Belter chair I worked on a few years ago:

http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2012/10/john-henry-belter-rosalie-pattern.html

The other idea that ultimately lead to the plastic chair is the chair that can easily be mass produced. One of the first prominent attempts at this was the chair made by Michael Thonet. His bentwood chair relied on steam bending components over a form to create the lines and structure of the chair. Every part of this chair was shaped over a form to create the shape that has become Iconic. Below is an example of Thonet's Design.

On to the 20th Century, Charles Eames worked with laminations of Rosewood and Walnut to create what is now known as the Eames chair, taking a page from the earlier work of Belter. Also, Eames and other designers were working with plastics to create a chair that could be comfortable and mass produced. An example of Eames plastic chair is seen below.

 This Example, by Eero Saarinen, shows a plastic chair throughout. This was probably reinforced with metal in the wine stem base.

 The Danish designer, Verner Panton created this chair using only plastic and the process of injection molded chair.

 In July of 2004, Mariana Gosnell wrote a fascinating article for the Smithsonian Magazine on the plastic chair entitled Everybody Take A Seat. In it she traces the work of Eames, Saarinen, and Panton as they worked towards the idea of the plastic chair that we have today. 

For a glimpse of just how easy it is to create this chair watch this video on the chair making process:

The chair that came to my shop had its original Forest Green color and shape that was oddly reminiscent of the helmet of Darth Vader. It was quite dirty from being outside, and needed a good cleaning. Here is a photo of the chair as it came to my shop.

      

The chair was very loose and needed to be tightened. Because of its shape, several different clamps needed to be used.

After the clamps were removed, The chair was cleaned with a little water, and was ready for delivery. Below are a few photos of the restored chair in all of its glory.

In researching this article, I found the following photo on Facebook. This one goes out to all the Bostonian readers of the blog:

I hope you have enjoyed this post about the plastic chair and all of its various influences and the next time you sit in yours, think upon the many hands and minds that worked towards that fine piece of furniture.

Happy April Fools Day from all of us at John Mark Power Antiques Restoration!

Arts and Crafts Oak China Cabinet (ca. 1920)

The Completed  China Cabinet

Once and a while we get a restoration job where the piece we are working on really sees a major transformation. Pieces that are painted usually fall into this category. 

A customer asked me to restore an heirloom china cabinet that was a piece made in the Arts and Crafts style in America sometime in the early part of the 20th century. The piece was made from white oak and had some nice quarter sawn boards throughout the piece. While I would not label this piece "Arts and Crafts" in the strictest sense, the use of oak, and the over all lines (minus the bandsawn feet and applied corbels) reflect the American Arts and Craft aesthetic. Of particular note is how the mating surfaces are never flush. for example where the side front glass frame meets the side glass frame, the frame overlaps about 1/16 of an inch. The designers of this did this intentionally to create a very simplistic sense of depth to the surfaces. For more on this take a look at the music cabinet I made in 2014:

http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2014/08/stickley-music-cabinet-2014.html

At any rate, this piece loosely falls into the Arts and Crafts category, so that is where I am placing it!

The condition of the piece when it came into the shop was that the entire piece had been painted, every joint in the piece was loose, It was missing its lock, escutcheon, and key, and the back had been pieced together at some point with newer material. Here is a "before" photo of the cabinet:

 

Obviously, the first thing to do was to remove the glass and then the paint and the finish below the paint, leaving the bare wood. After this was accomplished the cabinet looked like this:

The back and the quarter round were discarded and new material was installed in its place, but first the loose joinery needed to addressed. Below are the components that make up the cabinet during the dismantling period, everything was labeled so I knew how to put it back together.

While the cabinet was apart, several panels (like the bottom and the shelves) had separated along the joined boards. they were repaired and glued, as seen below.

These next two photos show the fixed frames that make up the sides and the door being glued together.

After the glue had dried on the side frames, the customer and I decided to introduce an adjustable shelf system to the piece. The brackets which had held the shelves originally had been fixed. To accomplish this, I used a shelf drilling jig to drill the holes on the stiles of the side frames as seen in the next three photos.

Once all of the frames were assembled, the rest of the piece was assembled with new glue. Before I assembled all of the individual parts, I sanded everything which was easier than sanding the piece when it was together. Below is are photos of the rebuilt cabinet and the shelves before staining.

I used a blend of a light walnut and extra dark walnut stain to simulate the look of oak fumed with ammonia. This fuming was the way in which Arts and Crafts pieces obtained there color, although I have run into plenty of pieces that were stained instead of fuming.

These next few photos show the completed piece with the glass installed.

Here is a detail of the key and new escutcheon I installed (the lock is on the inside of the door).

This photo shows one of the two corbels. They were made of a few boards stacked side by side, which were  face glued and band sawn to the curved profile. The band sawn edge was then sanded and veneered with quartersawn oak. The feet were also made this way.

Here are a few more photos taken outside (with a bit of snow in the foreground).