Chair Restoration

A chair came into the shop in much need of some tender loving care. It had clearly been a favorite chair that had gone through many repairs and reupholstering over the years.  There were so many staples and nails put into the back of the chair (to hold in the various upholsteries) that there wasn't much wood left.  I glued 562 pegs into the back of the chair in order to replace enough wood to allow the customer to have it once more upholstered.  That's right, 562 pegs!!!!  All of the light wood shown was rebuilt by me and some of the curves of the right arm had to be replaced and color matched.

Repair Job Tips - Fix it right or fix it twice

What's wrong with this picture?


If you say it's that it is in 50 million pieces you're wrong. What's wrong is that someone who didn't know what they were doing tried to fix this first, at least tripling my labor.

For another example, I had someone call me panicked because his house cleaner had broken his wife's favorite mission style desk. He was in a panic and I had him bring it right over. Four hours later that damage, and some other problems he didn't know about were fixed and he was on his way and had the piece home before his wife ever knew. All because he didn't try to do it himself first.





Most of the time, repairs aren't my favorite thing. It's not easy to take something back to its original condition when it's something made in the last few decades. For antique pieces, add in problems like materials have changed and tools have changed and techniques have changed.

These nestling tables were a lot of work but I actually did enjoy it. As I took it apart to fix the damage, we discovered that someone had replaced two missing portions with just wood putty.


We couldn't even tell it was wood putty at first because these beautiful rosewood tables were dyed black! It took quite some time to delicately remove the dye first. The missing sections had to be re-carved out of rosewood.