Antiques and refinishing/restoring.

For whatever reason the wife and I have been on a "pick up antique stuff and restore it" kick.

We've also been watching a lot of documentaries - I think were getting old.

The latest score was a china cabinet we found for $150. From what she found, it's a 1960 Bassett piece.

Anyway, she's been wanting a china cabinet but we never bothered forking over the outrageous price for one...then she saw this and I took her to get it.

We brought it home and she got to work cleaning the windows and giving it a good cleaning before I got to work taking care of problem areas.


Somehow in the past 51 years this thing got wet. The feet were in bad shape and needed to be replaced...


Mina got busy cutting off the old feet so I can make new ones. They were screwed and glued so it took a bit of work to cut'm off. Oscillating saw was the ticket.


Finally down to the last one. Dremel tool got hot and she broke out the gloves.


I broke out some red oak and cut new feet tonight. I didn't copy the original design 100%, but instead drew a new design with a set of french curves. A bit of work with the band saw and table saw and I had these.


Here's the fun part - matching the new pieces to the old furniture. I don't have toner on hand to play with so I'm using a mix of red chestnut, provincial, and walnut stains to get a match. Almost there.


While I worked on making new feet Mina got to work laying some velvet in the drawers.



So that's the most current project. I'll update as we progress.

Very nice work! I recently had to do the same repair to 'Waterfall Highboy Chest', so I know how tedious the restoration process can be. Please post a picture when it is filled with some fine Delft pieces. LOL

Looking good. Keep us posted on progress.

Got the feet finished and installed.


But before we flipped it over Mina wanted to give the bottom of the thing a once-over with the Shop-Vac.


Which meant she had to plug it in.


Anyway, got it moved to the dining room.





She got all her **** in it, so she's happy.

Looks good in there! Just remember, if she's happy, she'll make you happy. lol

I enjoyed looking at this one!!! I wish I could get my wife to do this kind of projects.

Nice job! I get a lot of satisfaction from doing stuff like this, except my projects usually involve bringing metal objects back to life. Wood is fun too, though.

I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole.....................

hunter1151 said:

I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole.....................

Click to expand...

It became a joke with some friends over the first image. I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing and thought she had squatted down.

Buddies commented on the image so the Shop-Vac plug in was taken just to fire back.

She just laughed and shook her head.

how did you manage to unplug the shop vac without her seeing you?

Drew_flux said:

how did you manage to unplug the shop vac without her seeing you?

Click to expand...

lmfao.......................

Plugging it in would be good!

Drew_flux said:

how did you manage to unplug the shop vac without her seeing you?

Click to expand...

Yeah, those pics are out of sequence. I copy/pasted from another forum.

Wife picked up some LED lighting from IKEA on a recent trip to Florida.

Tonight I mounted the LEDs and powered it up.



She now wants me to make some trim pieces for the LED units/wiring so they're hidden.

"You can use your router."

It seems my master plan is going according to my master plan. *evil laugh

She sees how "all of those tools" I have/want can benefit her.

All you youngin's should take notes.

98TJ said:

She sees how "all of those tools" I have/want can benefit her.

All you youngin's should take notes.

Click to expand...

Learning from jedi master,now reveal the secret to getting the wife to do all the work, whilst you stand there and take pic's.

When it came time to take the old feet off I showed her how and she got to it.

She doesn't mind working in the garage. Especially if it's something she likes.