Back to Beautiful - Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

I'm Tom Johnson, Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration in Gorm, Maine. This is a set of six fancy chairs, at least that's a term that was used when this style was original in the 1830s or so. These chairs, however, are much more likely from the first quarter of the 20th century. Family lore is that these chairs were in a family home that was built around 1919, and I believe they were probably new to that home. If you look at the underside, you'll see what I think is evidence of the 20th century. This wood just doesn't look that old to me. And then if you look at the finishing techniques, they're very modern. But what really throws a wrench into any theory is the fact that four of these chairs have these big plugs here. They used to be something else across here, and three of them are mortised out in this area to put in a new backsplat here. Suffice to say, we'll never know what went down. But these are good chairs, they have a lot of sentimental value, and my job will be to clean them and touch them up as best I can. I'm not going to try to restore the paint job, per se, but just make them acceptable to be used again. The first step is going to be to clean these. I'm going to start with a mild cleaning solution. That's 12 ounces of hot water, or about 350 milliliters. A teaspoon, or about 5 milliliters of borax. Two tablespoons, or about 30 milliliters of vinegar. And two tablespoons, that's 30 milliliters, of this mild soap, Murphy Oil Soap. So I may, uh, I'm not eliminating the possibility of trying something stronger, but let's try a mild solution first. These have been stored for a while. Okay, I've let this dry for a couple hours, so I'm going to mix up a little paint and experiment a bit. I've got some acrylic colors here, let's see what we can do. I want to see what that dark oxide green looks like. Add a little blue, a little more, maybe a little white and a little umber. I'm definitely on the right track here. This might be a good time for me to point out that I'm not trying to step on anybody's toes here. I think Julian's job is secure for quite some time. I'm just trying to take the curse off these things, make them look a little better. I feel like I can get the right color now. You know, I've been noticing that a lot of these chips have a distinct kind of hard little edge to them, and that gives me an idea. I was wondering if I should fill some of these areas with some putty, and it gave me an idea to color the putty. This is water-based, natural color putty. This large area, I can see it's going to be a problem. This might work well on small spots, I'll try that next. Yeah, I can see this has possibilities. This could work. I need more color in it though. Okay, I might as well do these other nail holes, then I'll get back to those stretchers. This might work a little better too if I allow the putty to set up a little bit. See those nail holes are nice and deep. That made it a little easier. These larger areas may not work as well. As you can see, I'm losing a little there. I'll try to put it back and leave it alone. As the putty becomes hard, which is happening now over a period of just a few minutes, which is excellent, I can smooth it out a little bit. There's a little bit of lightness showing through, a little bit of distressing and that's good. I'll just say it's good because it makes it look not like a big blob. I'm going to keep working this on this lower part of the leg, so the less important parts. I want to watch this dry and see if I need to adjust the color at all. I think on the small spots it's going to work fine. These big expanses are going to be tough. Luckily, this one's on the inside of the stretcher. It doesn't really show, but it's going to be good practice to figure out what to do. I'll try the putty. Because I did this whole stretcher, this putty's had a bit of time to set up a little bit and I'm hoping that I'll be able to smooth it a little bit easier. I think it's going to work. This is in an area that's not really seen. I'll be anxious to see what the color looks like when it completely dries, but I think I can, at least for now, proceed on some of these less obvious areas and then work my way up to the top. These areas on the undersides of the stretchers are good practice. Luckily, this acrylic washes right off your finger. I'll let this set for a few minutes and then keep trying. After this dries, I'm going to go back and mix up a little of just color without putty and I'll hit these little spots. I'm going to try padding this very lightly with a little alcohol on a rag. I just want to see if it brightens it up a little bit. I think that might have helped a little bit. I don't want to push my luck, though. Luckily, this stencil's in pretty good shape. I've got to try touching up some of these gold areas. They're really different. There's a lot of different areas. Well, let's see what I got in my can of gold touch-up stuff here. I have a lot of these gold waxes, which, generally speaking, work really well. Super gold, Inca gold, antique gold, Grecian gold, all kinds of things. I've got liquid gold. Here's what I'm looking for, bronzing powders, gold enamel. I have no idea what these are made from. Obviously, they do have metal in them, but this is what they use for these stencils. I'm kind of liking this pale gold. Let's try it. Put a little bit of this acrylic glazing liquid in here. This looks good, but it's way too much gold for the chair. Let's add a little raw umber to it. That's definitely taking it in the right direction. I'll add a little bit more. I could try this out, see what it looks like. Not bad. I think I could use a little more umber in it. Maybe even a little bit more umber. It's not bad. Okay, it's one thing doing little spots. This seems to work well for that. What's going to happen with these larger areas? Not bad. I've got to put even more glaze coat in here. I've got to make this thinner. I'm getting a better consistency now. It definitely looks better. The raw wood gone reaches my goal of just taking the curse off of it. I'm going to leave that alone for now and go on to other parts. I've got a lot better flow now. Interestingly enough, that other first thing I mixed up wasn't working. I have some of this Minwax polyacrylic polyurethane. I used that and the bronzing powders, the raw umber, and that made a much, much better paint. Okay, not bad. I need a little more color here, and I need to put color along the top edge here. I'm going to use this raw umber glaze from Mohawk. It's similar to what I've been doing with this glaze. It's basically linseed oil with oil colors in it. Okay, I've let this dry. I'm going to wax it up with some Gilboy's beeswax polish. I'll start first on one of these rungs, see how it works. Now, I'm using 4-watt steel wool, but I'm not applying much pressure at all. I'm just going very lightly, and it's developing a nice sheen. So I'll go ahead and do the entire chair. Well, that's it. This is the first of a set of six of these fancy painted chairs. I can only hope that Julian approves, or at least doesn't disapprove. You know, the owner and I decided on the 6-foot rule, and that's a real thing. That states in the specifications that a piece should look good from 6 feet away, and I think I achieved that. I think it looks pretty good.