We work on a lot of custom jobs and enjoy the demands of taking a design and making it functional. However antiques have their own set of demands that we love to work on. Our latest project was one such job.
A first time client, they came to us because they knew of our attention to detail and that, of course, is what antiques are all about. Antique restoration involves a number of “old world” techniques and skills that we employ everyday in our antiques work. In this case we were asked to make a number of reproductions inspired by the mid 18th century Queen Anne period.
The pieces were inspired by our client’s personal requests and traditional Bermuda furniture designs. With that in mind Bermudian cedar was used for end tables, lamps, a coffee table and dumbwaiter throughout the house.
Furniture restoration always has its challenges and this job was very detail oriented. The clients have very fine taste in furniture so it was necessary for us to be meticulous in our building.
Hand-carved feet, inlaying, and carved aprons were among the many details that were involved in this job as well as the most time intensive features. The coffee table as well, had a satin wood inlay that required precise hand carving.
We also paid a lot of attention to the wood we were using for the pieces. When milling the cedar we had to book-match the wood in order to have consistent wood grain. This technique tends to lose nearly half of the initial raw cedar, however the results are visually stunning.
Finally because these were reproductions the finishes and techniques we used had to match the era they are from. We attempted to have every process as close to the original antique fabrication. Lacquered finishes were applied to seal the wood and hand polishing was then required to ensure a flat smooth surface finish.
It was a number of pieces to create and build and we were happy with the final result. They look stunning on their own as well as within the clients home. It’s hard not to be proud of all the details put into each of the pieces and we know the clients enjoy them as well.
