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Ha! I'm guessing you didn't know this was a post about furniture ;)
I have an antique Mahogany vanity and end table that were part of a set that my Aunt had as a child. Years ago I was at my grandmother's house and commented how I liked the set a lot, and my grandmother offered it to me. The matching bureau has been at her house storing things, but as she's declining in a nursing home and my father and aunts have been working on cleaning things out, the bureau will now be emptied for me to take. We're picking it up on Sunday morning.
At some point my grandfather had slapped a few coats of white paint on the thing which over the 50 or so years since painted have yellowed quite a bit. I spent hundreds of hours refinishing the vanity when I was in high school (actually 3 pieces, a mirror that hangs on the wall, a seat and the bureau-style unit). The thing is quite ornate, and it took forever to strip it down to natural wood so that I could finish it with polyurethane (the natural wood coming through the glaze is this pretty reddish color, almost like a light cherry). Here's a pic (albeit a bit dark) where you can see part of it: http://www.diabolis.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=211&pos=21 . In college at some point Gram gave me the end table and I stripped that (though I still haven't buffed and polished the old brass drawer pulls, and they are quite tarnished). It didn't take nearly as long given its small size.
All of this work in the past kind of earned me the reputation of being good at that kind of stuff. The thing is, it sucks! Its smelly, messy, time consuming. I spent a good deal of time stripping paint off of the poplar mantle in our home in Framingham, only to give up and pay someone to finish it (it cost < $100 and they did a good job). I figured I'd just pay to have Gram's bureau stripped and finished when the time came. Its nowhere as ornate as the other pieces, but its still a big honkin piece of furniture. Cue Angie's list! I found some good local places, but in reading reviews learned how expensive this work can actually be. People paid between $500-$1000 to refinish antique dressers and the like. I just can't bring myself to spend that kind of cash on something I can do myself with relatively little time. It looks like I'll be spending some quality time in the garage with some nasty chemicals, some scrapers and small detail sanders. Heh, I still haven't even stripped the wood on our peeling 2nd floor bathroom door. Such sucky work, but it will be worth it!
I have an antique Mahogany vanity and end table that were part of a set that my Aunt had as a child. Years ago I was at my grandmother's house and commented how I liked the set a lot, and my grandmother offered it to me. The matching bureau has been at her house storing things, but as she's declining in a nursing home and my father and aunts have been working on cleaning things out, the bureau will now be emptied for me to take. We're picking it up on Sunday morning.
At some point my grandfather had slapped a few coats of white paint on the thing which over the 50 or so years since painted have yellowed quite a bit. I spent hundreds of hours refinishing the vanity when I was in high school (actually 3 pieces, a mirror that hangs on the wall, a seat and the bureau-style unit). The thing is quite ornate, and it took forever to strip it down to natural wood so that I could finish it with polyurethane (the natural wood coming through the glaze is this pretty reddish color, almost like a light cherry). Here's a pic (albeit a bit dark) where you can see part of it: http://www.diabolis.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=211&pos=21 . In college at some point Gram gave me the end table and I stripped that (though I still haven't buffed and polished the old brass drawer pulls, and they are quite tarnished). It didn't take nearly as long given its small size.
All of this work in the past kind of earned me the reputation of being good at that kind of stuff. The thing is, it sucks! Its smelly, messy, time consuming. I spent a good deal of time stripping paint off of the poplar mantle in our home in Framingham, only to give up and pay someone to finish it (it cost < $100 and they did a good job). I figured I'd just pay to have Gram's bureau stripped and finished when the time came. Its nowhere as ornate as the other pieces, but its still a big honkin piece of furniture. Cue Angie's list! I found some good local places, but in reading reviews learned how expensive this work can actually be. People paid between $500-$1000 to refinish antique dressers and the like. I just can't bring myself to spend that kind of cash on something I can do myself with relatively little time. It looks like I'll be spending some quality time in the garage with some nasty chemicals, some scrapers and small detail sanders. Heh, I still haven't even stripped the wood on our peeling 2nd floor bathroom door. Such sucky work, but it will be worth it!
