When is an old piece of furniture past Saving?

The I found this piece in the basement of a home in Kansas City. The firm I was working for at the time had been called by a lady to pick up a dining room set and when I arrived I found the family trying to clean out the home of their mother who had passed away.

Her husband asked us to help him carry this old “bench” out of the basement. Once we got all the old cans of motor oil and paint out of the drawers and the chest out into the sunlight I realized There was  something special here under all the decades of abuse.

Closer Inspection can give you hints to what lies hidden.

A closer look revealed some interesting facts:

1.     Under the nailed on plywood top the original top only covered the front half of the case.

2.     In the bottom drawer we found a set of three small drawers (Hankie Drawers) that exactly fit in the missing area of the top. Interesting?

3.     Also in the bottom drawer were four short feet with round pegs that matched the holes in the bottom corners of the chest. Most dressers don;t have feet and when they do they are attached in a permanet fashion. These were clearly meant to be removed, but why?

4.     The drawers are hand dovetailed and though every drawer was missing a part all of the drawer fronts were still there.That's a good thing reproducing the sides, back and bottom of a drawer is relatively simple. Making a new front to match the old ones could have been the end of this project.

5.     There was some veneer missing in several places and it was thicker than modern veneers so replacing those bits was going to be a challenge.Over time the art of slicing veneer has been refined a great deal so the older the veneer the thicker and this stufff was almost 1/8" thick so VERY OLD STUFF.

6.     Then, underneath all those decades of abuse we discover that the veneer is real Mahogany. When I refer to it as REAL Mahogany it is because original Mahogany is very rare. Most of those original logs came from Africa or South America and it has been illegal to import those endangered logs into the United States for decades.

So, what we have here is soemthing special even though it has had a tough life recently. Given what I knew about the piece I did some research.  Chests made in this fashion and with the characteristics I was seeing date the piece as being made before 1860. But those removable feet I discover mean it was made as a "Wagon Chest", meaning it was designed to sit inside a covered wagon  and when you reached your new home you took it out, put the feet back on and it was once again the corret height for a dresser. This one wasn't just a  Wagon Chest though, becuase with those hankie drawers and Mahogany Veneer this one was a Cadillac.

We begin by making as many of the repairs as possible.

  The bottom frame of the chest is completely replaced with solid Phillipine Mahoganyy which is close to the original because finding matching veneer that would match was impossible.

 Each drawer is rebuilt using material as close to original as possible. This includes planning some lumber down to match the thickness of the originals. When this chest was made wood was planned to thickness by hand, consequenetly it is thicker than todays modern lumber which is surfaced by huge machines.

  The Hankie Drawers are refitted in their original positions and repairs made to them. Thankfully they are in good condition.

Everything is stripped to remove over 100 years of oil, grease, odd dollops of paint, grime, and any finish that might still be on the piece. This piece had been her father's "workbench" for as long as anyone could remember

The whole piece is then reassembled and any new repairs revealed by the stripping process are completed. Once all the "gunk" is off an old piece it is not unusualy to discover that soem of the interior framing is not as solid as it once was.

 Then everything is stained, blending any new wood with the old and three coats of a clear satin lacquer are applied. This sounds so simple when in reality this part of teh job takes longer than all the rest of it combined.

Now, If you recall, This piece was being carried out to the curb for disposal. I had suggested it deserved a closer look to the lady's husband and he had agreed that it might be worth saving. The piece was completed and he stopped into the shop to see it and pay the bill. I delieverd the completed chest of drawers with a photo set of the process on December 20th. The lady who had watched her father fix stuff on that "bench" for decades couldn't believe it was the same piece.

Sometimes it's not about the money. Sometimes it's about the history.
Well made furniture will always be fixable if someone can see the potential and can afford the time it takes to make it happen.