Furniture Restoration: Step-by-Step Tips and Techniques for Professional Results

Repair that favorite antique—with step-by-step help from the pros.

Who doesn't love to watch Antiques Roadshow? And who doesn’t secretly suspect that Mom's sewing cabinet, that great thrift-store table, or Grandpa's rocking chair could someday be the star of the show? If only the cabinet door hung straight... if only the table weren't all scratched up.. if only the chair still rocked. Now it's easy to get those pieces ready for their close-up! Furniture Restoration makes it simple to assess and repair favorite pieces, whether they're family heirlooms or flea-market finds. Authors Ina Brosseau Marx and Allen Marx share more than thirty years of experience in all kinds of antique furniture restoration. The first chapter gives readers an overview of restoration and explains exactly how to tell when a piece is valuable enough to use a professional restorer. The rest of the book guides the reader through furniture restoration and repairs of every kind, looking at common problems on different pieces and some quick fixes as well as the properties of wood, repairing joinery, restoring surfaces, making molds and casts, restoring color, repairing veneers, finishes, and ornamented surfaces, and much, much more. More than 600 full-color photos and dozens of before-and-afters let readers see exactly how to fix whatever is wrong without going wrong themselves.

• One-of-a-kind one-volume resource

• Everybody is interested in antiques and treasures; an estimated 80 million people in the U.S. are collectors

• Accessible methods plus encouraging in-process photographs

• Authors are tops in their field, with more than thirty years' experience

• Great for beginners, collectors, designers, antiques dealers, fans of Antiques Roadshow, everybody!

Repair that favorite antique—with step-by-step help from the pros.

Who doesn't love to watch Antiques Roadshow? And who doesn’t secretly suspect that Mom's sewing cabinet, that great thrift-store table, or Grandpa's rocking chair could someday be the star of the show? If only the cabinet door hung straight... if only the table weren't all scratched up.. if only the chair still rocked. Now it's easy to get those pieces ready for their close-up! Furniture Restoration makes it simple to assess and repair favorite pieces, whether they're family heirlooms or flea-market finds. Authors Ina Brosseau Marx and Allen Marx share more than thirty years of experience in all kinds of antique furniture restoration. The first chapter gives readers an overview of restoration and explains exactly how to tell when a piece is valuable enough to use a professional restorer. The rest of the book guides the reader through furniture restoration and repairs of every kind, looking at common problems on different pieces and some quick fixes as well as the properties of wood, repairing joinery, restoring surfaces, making molds and casts, restoring color, repairing veneers, finishes, and ornamented surfaces, and much, much more. More than 600 full-color photos and dozens of before-and-afters let readers see exactly how to fix whatever is wrong without going wrong themselves.

• One-of-a-kind one-volume resource

• Everybody is interested in antiques and treasures; an estimated 80 million people in the U.S. are collectors

• Accessible methods plus encouraging in-process photographs

• Authors are tops in their field, with more than thirty years' experience

• Great for beginners, collectors, designers, antiques dealers, fans of Antiques Roadshow, everybody!

Karen Ellis Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information - School Library Journal

Is your antique furniture beat-up and deteriorating? Professional restorers and instructors, the Marxes here compile their considerable expertise. Pulling from their own stock of photos, they cover a wide range of restoring problems and solutions. The instructions are detailed, with some terminology left undefined, and knowledge of basic techniques is assumed. While the text does have good organization and step-by-step instructions, there is no handholding and limited illustrations. An experienced furniture maker may not have problems with these projects, but they are not for the beginner. This impressive book is suitable for larger collections or where the topic is in demand.

Ina Brosseau Marx and Allen Marx restore, consult, and curate for such museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University's Garvan Collection, the New-York Historical Society, and many collectors and institutions. In 1983, the Marxes founded The Finishing School, which offers in-depth instruction in creating painted finishes, and their book, Professional Painted Finishes, has sold more than TK,000 copies. They live in Princeton, NJ.