Boring!

The next piece of furniture awaiting repair and restoration is Wardrobe No. 2, another oak piece.  It also appears to be locally made, with what looks like  rimu softwood on the parts that are not visible.  This one was won on the TradeMe auction site for the princely sum of $29.

Wardrobe in original condition

As with Wardrobe No. 1, there is some damage requiring repair.

Damaged door trim

But the most significant issue is borer, which has been eating away at all of the concealed softwood (bottom and top, drawer sides and back) and even some of the oak in places.

So first thing to do is to treat it with a permethrin insecticide concentrate mixed with mineral turpentine.  Permethrin is used in a variety of products from flea killers to a treatment for head lice in children. 

  

Wardrobe and escritoire

And here it will stay for the next six months or so.  The borer beetles take flight some time between November and March, so any evidence of this or dust from larvae will decide whether a second treatment is needed.

The big bag is a heavy duty king sized mattress bag - free from a local furniture store.  The writing desk or escritoire in front of the wardrobe has also recently arrived in the workshop and also has insect damage, although as with the wardrobe we don't know whether the guests have vacated.  A very boring wait but better safe than sorry.

Wardrobe No. 1

The latest project to leave the workshop and head into the house is this oak wardrobe.

It was purchased on auction site TradeMe for $80 in slightly scruffy condition. The knobs were missing, the lock was broken and there were a couple of pieces of damaged wood trim.

Carcase being cleaned

The wood trim was repaired with some American white oak we had left over from our skirting boards.  The match is not perfect, mainly because of the stain colour and grain differences. 

Broken moulding repaired

The half round moulding on the edge of the door was completely replaced and this was a better match to the original door frame.

Half-round moulding replaced and new knobs and lock installed

New hardware was sourced from Handle Solutions in Albany.  Over-sized Victorian cupboard knobs were chosen to hide the marks and holes left from previous hardware.

 

Drawer bottom replaced

The new drawer bottom was perhaps unnecessary but the existing CCA treated pine plywood one just looked awful, even if the only one who is going to see it is me.

We have since purchased another wardrobe of a similar style and in similar dilapidated condition for a mere $29.  It is going to need a thorough borer beetle treatment before I can begin though.  Look out for Wardrobe No. 2.

Armchair Restoration

This project has been simmering away since May last year when I started a furniture restoration course with Johan Van Westen at In Studio.

Completed Restoration

The chair was bought for a good price by Shirley some years ago.  The original springs had lost their temper though and the supporting webbing had broken through.  All the joints were loose and there were several cracks in the frame including a major one through a rear leg.

Upholstery removed, showing original horse hair and straw filling.

Johan took me through the process of breaking down the chair and splicing in new pieces of wood.

New mahogany spliced into back leg to reinforce a cracked mortice joint.

New mahogany in foot to reinforce a crack in the bottom of front leg

It was an excellent, hands-on course and I immediately enrolled in the next one to learn about reassembling the frame and applying French polish.  The frame was re-glued using traditional hot hide glue and then re-polished with shellac.

The cleaned frame prior to French polishing

I then passed the frame on to upholsterer James Backhouse (JBU Limited) who has done a lovely job with the upholstery.  New webbing and steel springs were fixed in place.  He used traditional coir (coconut fibre) filling to supplement the original straw and horsehair (horsehair being very difficult to obtain).  A calico liner was fixed in place before the upholstery fabric was secured.  Shirley had already obtained the fabric and James matched it with a gimp scroll around the edges.

Gimp edging to fabric.  Note the veneer repair to a rail (The rails are beech with a mahogany veneer).

The chair had lost its castors some time in the past.  They would have originally been either brass or ceramic.  I sourced new brass castors from Heico in the UK.  There were no New Zealand made castors in the right size (round ones for the front legs and square ones for the back legs).  The NZ ones that were available were about triple the price anyway so it paid to shop around.

Brass castor.

I briefly considered ageing the castors with ammonia fumes but it sounded like quite a toxic process, so nature will have to take its course.

Repair to back leg

The sign of a good furniture restorer is that he or she has not advertised their work so to speak.  There are a few things that my eye falls on.  The splice on the main leg is still visible, even after fitting and staining it under Johan's instruction, but overall I am reasonably happy with the finished project.  On to the next one!

Space-walking Over New Zealand

Cool photo of a space walk on the International Space Station as it passes over NZ.  Christchurch, Farewell Spit, Malborough Sounds and the lower North Island all visible.  Thanks to Twisted Sifter for putting this one up.  Image from NASA on Wikicommons.  It was taken back in 2006, so not exactly current.  Looking forward to seeing SpaceX Dragon etc making visits in the future if US/Russia relations continue to deteriorate.