Completed Work

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This chair required complete restoration and it came into the workshop as shown. Amazingly only four new seat rails had to be made, all the other pieces were there and repaired in several stages before finally being reassembled. The chair was then re-polished and the seat and back panels were caned in the correct size for the period.

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The plinth and hood on this case were completely restored as shown. The original lacquer work was cleaned and consolidated along with the gilding and restored sensitively where necessary.

The hood on this clock had been cut down and once restored it to its original height required much delicate work both to match the colour and decoration on the rest of the case. The trunk door was the most startling result; as I began to clean the door the excellent lacquer work was revealed from which I drew inspiration to repeat the appropriate designs on the repaired sections of the case.

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This piece was a real challenge. All the joints on the entire framework were loose, the carved mouldings and gesso work on the top section of the chair frame had completely broken away. Every joint was dismantled and necessary repairs carried out. The joints were cleaned, re-glued with the traditional glue, assembled and the frame clamped back together.

All the mouldings and gesso work on the top of the chair frame were carefully put back into place and restored, and then the entire chair was re-gilded.

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The work on this piece for me was one of the most memorable because it had to undergo a complete major overhaul. It required all the necessary restoration skills to transform it back to its former glory and yet retain its character. A completely new fretwork gallery was designed from the remnant pieces of the original and made out of walnut. Turning, carving, veneer and inlay work, leathering of the fall and French polishing all contributed to achieve the end result.

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The centre of this top was water damaged and consequently a lot of the inlay in the top was missing. A new floral inlay was inlaid in the top which was then re-polished to match as near as possible the original colour.

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This piece had seen a lot of hard work during the course of its life because it was subject to heavy use in an office. Extensive restoration was required to bring this piece back to its loved condition. This involved the complete dismantling of the very loose top section of the desk, restoring all the component parts and then re-glued and assembled. The corners of the plinths on the pedestals were really worn and lot of veneer was missing around their edges. Several of the drawers had damaged fronts, sides, backs and the bottoms were broken in several places. The fronts had a mixture of brass pull handles which were removed and new turned wooden ones made to match the remaining originals. The locks were repaired, new keys cut and the top leathered and gold tooled. Once all the repairs were complete the desk was then re-polished and waxed.

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The top of this table had been left out in the rain with the result that most of the veneer became blistered and broken away. The top had a serious split in it and all the cross grain walnut mouldings around the tops bevelled edge were missing. The outer edge of the apron rail was re-veneered in walnut.

New English walnut was cut, fitted and applied to the bevelled edge on the top and, when dry, cleaned off. Appropriate burr walnut veneer was now selected and laid by hand to create this wonderful pattern, the new walnut on the edge of the top was moulded and the top finally polished to accomplish the finished result you see in the final picture.

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The hood on this case had also been cut down to accommodate a lower ceiling height; this was a common practice when people inherited pieces such as this so they could fit them into their own homes. However, as you will see, this involved the remaking of the hood to the correct shape and height and then veneering in old mahogany veneer. A fret panel was then designed from pattern books correct for the period, cut and fitted to allow the sound of the movement's striking bell to be heard. The repairs were then polished, matched out and blended in to match the rest of the case and finally waxed.

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This piece presented another real challenge when it came into the workshop. The joints on both top and bottom carcases were all loose, the joints of the top were all split, all the drawer runners were very badly worn, the feet and side mouldings were missing and it had to undergo a complete major overhaul. The pictures show the final result and the colour and patination of this piece was outstanding.

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This piece was of super quality with deep and crisp carving but had been painted with a least four coats of paint. This was stripped off down to the bare wood, the frame then gessoed and carved where necessary and then gilded with 22 ct gold leaf which when completed looked absolutely stunning.

The frame was upholstered in the stripe pattern material you can see in the photograph, which really sets the piece off.

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The middle top had a very bad split in it and the right hand side leaf was very badly bowed causing the brass inlay to come loose.

The top had to be completely removed from the base frame to enable the split to be restored, the leaf was unscrewed and removed so that the bow could be corrected and the brass inlay repaired and put back into place. All the repairs were matched out and blended in before finally waxing.

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This particular mirror frame had been sprayed with gold paint and, as you can see, the bottom section had been badly damaged.

The first stage in the restoration process involved the repair and restoration of the damaged bottom section. A new piece of the same sort of timber was cut, fitted and glued into position. This was then carved to match and blend in with the remainder of this section, as the picture sequence shows. Once carving was complete, this section was then gessoed and regilded.

The gold paint was carefully removed from the remainder of the mirror frame, repairs and consolidation to the damaged gesso work was carried out and the complete frame regilded in 21ct gold.

The fully restored bottom section was now fitted into place to complete a stunning mirror.