Restoring and Refinishing Furniture: An Illustrated Guide to Revitalizing Your Home

Introduction

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Sure, showing off something new is enjoyable. A cell phone, a pair of shoes, a car, a couch, a kitchen … We live in a consumer’s society that causes us to accumulate tons of objects, gadgets, and other junk. But as soon as an item breaks, or even just goes out of style, we stash it away or, even worse, discard it. Aggressive marketing campaigns and publicity make sure we are not tempted to repair or reuse something we already own. The slogan becomes: use, toss, and buy again.

An object’s lifespan becomes shorter and shorter, purchases increase and, consequently, so does the waste generated by this endless pattern. More advanced societies have developed some noticeable linear production and consumption processes in which the excess of waste is the final result.

With this book, we would like to bring a little balance to these forces and promote the three famous Rs: Reduce consumption and its waste, Reuse (refinish) objects, and Recycle materials. These three words are the key to preserving the planet we live on.

Taking into consideration the need to adopt an individual behavior that is more respectful towards nature, the goal of this book is to show that it is very easy and cost effective to reuse and refinish used furniture that we have around the house. This way, we can break the damaging cycle of using and discarding by making small repairs and alterations inspired by imagination and creativity.

See for yourself: go to your local recycling center and look at the number of old computers, keyboards, freezers, washers, furniture, and other household items that pile up in the containers. Sure, some of them could be reused. In the case of furniture, many pieces could fulfill their purpose for many years to come with just a couple of paint touch-ups.

That is exactly what this book is about. Through a series of practical examples, we will show you, step by step, the restoration and surprising transformation of several pieces of furniture and other accessories.

Restoring a Piece of Furniture

Until recently, restoring furniture was considered to be typical of the lower social classes or eccentric idealists (like the first ecologists of the ’60s), as well as fans of antiques. Nowadays, the stigma against restoring is slowly disappearing, paving the way for practices that show off aesthetic qualities and variations that new furniture simply no longer possess.

Furniture lends character and style to our nearest living spaces. As products of our daily lives, they can acquire their own personality and even feelings (a child’s crib, Grandma’s old sofa, Dad’s desk …) that can affect us in more ways than we realize. Our ancestors, who passed their furniture down from generation to generation as a precious legacy, understood this. But current price reductions and the aggressive marketing campaigns of determined warehouses have started a new trend: Redecorate your lives, they say. Using cheap, practical, and impressive designs, they tell us to buy new furniture whenever it strikes our fancy, seasonally, just like we see in the fashion world. There is a downside to this attitude. We are given the short-lived pleasure of change, briefly alleviating the heaviness of daily life. The materials, the place, the production, and method of commercialization all result in the object being a cheap product that has a short lifespan. This is the core throwaway attitude.

In contrast to this extravagant option, there is a more sustainable one based on the restoration of used furniture. Take note of its two fundamental aspects:

1. Restoration. This means returning a piece of furniture to its original state. Having to do with old and valuable furniture, restoration requires an expert hand well-versed in old or modern techniques, with a knowledge of and ability to use tools, products, and special finishes.

In this book we will tackle restoration in a superficial way in order to concentrate on a more routine and affordable method: restoration through transformation, with a mindset of promoting ecological conscientiousness and developing inventive and useful skills.

2. Transformation, or the art of changing the shape, use, or appearance of a piece of furniture. As opposed to restoring, this is about reinterpreting a piece of furniture, using its qualities and defects to create a different piece, whether the change is formal (composition), utilitarian (with regards to function), or decorative (color and texture). The transformation, as well as being practical, allows for the use of imaginative resources that will give the piece of furniture its own unique personality.

Free Your Imagination

While restoration attempts to imbue the deteriorated object with its original splendor (as closely as possible), the transformation of furniture frees the imagination and makes use of creative abilities. Through structural or decorative transformation, the goal is to breathe new life into a piece, taking advantage of its qualities and peculiarities, and by playing with forms and details that are no longer found in production.

This is also considered an act of remembrance, since we are opting to reuse and enjoy older shapes and structures. Ultimately, it is also fun considering that this type of restoration stimulates our imagination and allows us to freely express ourselves and experiment with each piece of furniture that falls in our hands. This way, we may restructure on older object into a modern one. We may even customize a modern piece of furniture so that it looks like a more original, unique, and special piece. It’s all just a matter of creativity.

The things you can find …

One can find absolutely anything while searching for used furniture, although these smaller discoveries may have undesirable qualities, for which they were most likely tossed in the first place.

For example, we can find:

• Furniture that has outlived its purpose. For example, children’s furnishings, storage file cabinets, card organizers, closet backs, barber chairs … pieces that are no longer used because of their owners’ change in habits.

• Degraded furniture.

• Because of the material: broken or deteriorated furniture.

• Due to mistreatment: broken, wasted, or furniture that is falling apart, etc.

• Because of superficial faults: scratches, ruptures, etc.

• Outdated furniture. It is old-fashioned and, as a result, hard to place alongside the rest of the decorations.

• Useful disposable objects. Packing and transportation boxes.

Where to Look

To begin with, it’s worth taking a look through your home’s storage rooms, garages, and attics. One can often find treasure disguised as furniture or objects from another era. Older generations usually do not subscribe to the modern mindset of disposal. Their houses can often be galleries full of memories, an ideal spot for a good hunter of used furniture. Surely, your grandfather won’t hesitate to give you that old chest of drawers, or perhaps you can just borrow it and give it back later like new again. You can also look in:

• Antique shops and restoration workshops. These places are more specialized. They tend to sell furniture that has already been restored, but you can also buy unfinished or half finished furniture for interesting prices.

• Flea markets. Many cities in the world host weekly flea markets where one can find everything from luxurious antiques to cheap furnishings, to furniture in various states of disrepair.

• Charitable entities. Warehouses that sell recovered and restored furniture and other objects at very low prices. The profit is given to the workers (the furniture arrives via donations: an easy way to get rid of your junk). An international example would be the Emmaus Foundation, established in France in 1949.

• Barter markets. At these types of markets, you can exchange furniture for other furniture. There is no exchange of money and they are usually organized regularly by local or regional groups that you can find online.

• Public auctions. Organized by local governments with the content of homes seized by the law (as compensation), impossible inheritances, or due to abandonment by the owner.

• Furniture collection spots. Each city is in charge of organizing furniture collection events and it is best to ask them directly. They usually organize street pickup events or designate areas where you can drop your furniture off.

• Secondhand ads. These are a good option for finding furniture at interesting prices. The technology of the Internet and digital photography has greatly enabled this system.

There are also establishments where you may find objects for reuse as architectural components, doors, facings, restrooms and sinks, pillars, ledges, and, of course, furniture, boxes, trunks, mirrors, etc. These recovered elements usually come from old apartments that have been abandoned or remodeled, or even from antiquated factories or businesses whose office materials or other tools can be used for their original purpose or used in a whole new way. There are those who would use a smelting tub as a planter on their balcony and those who would make use of an old file cabinet to store clothes.

There are also shops that restore and sell ceramic flooring, mosaics, and clay pieces rescued from old construction sites. These stores give new life to objects or materials that are still useful and that often hold a certain historic, artistic, or traditional value.

Before Acquiring a Piece of Furniture

Start by performing a basic assessment to determine the difficulty of the project to thus be able to calculate the physical investment (hours of labor) and materials (cost of tools, paints, etc.). You might find that at first it’s a little harder to approximate the cost of the project, but you’ll soon gain experience and be able to much more accurately assess the total cost.

If you want to avoid rookie mistakes, start by working on cheaper pieces of furniture and move on to higher quality pieces as you pick up more experience.

General Assessment

This is about being able to appreciate or recognize the qualities of a piece of furniture and to imagine how it will look after its transformation. The aspects that come into play here are style, function, and the size of the space that the piece will eventually have to fit into.

Before acquiring a piece of furniture, it is advisable to observe and ask yourself a series of questions:

At the functional level

• Do we really need a piece of furniture that does this?

• Can we adapt the piece to fulfill a more useful need?

• Will it be practical to use it in the manner we are thinking? For example, a fantastic file cabinet that won’t be able to open all the way because of a lack of space …

At the aesthetic level

It is important to visualize the piece of furniture we are about to restore to make sure it will go with the space we are planning to put it in. For example, a pop seventies-style piece of furniture will most likely not go well in a rustic-style house. Although many dare to mix different styles, it is advisable, at the beginning, to avoid attempting to force together greatly contracting styles. In a neutral home, we run into fewer stylistic problems since the special object is allowed to stand out. Both modern furniture as well as old will have their spot and the opportunity to influence the space, even if it is in contrasting ways.

At the spatial level

It may seem obvious, but it is actually complicated trying to visualize whether a piece of furniture will fit in the space we have planned for it. How many times have we arrived home with a new piece of furniture only to find, to our dismay, that is doesn’t fit where we had planned to show