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    Refinishing Furniture for a Profit
    Refinishing Furniture for a Profit
    Refinishing Furniture for a Profit
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    Refinishing Furniture for a Profit

    By Anne Haclyffe

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    About this ebook

    If you've ever seen a lovely but wrecked old piece of furniture at a flea market or dumped by the side of the road and wished you had the skill to rescue it - now you can.

     

    Anne Haclyffe has been rescuing furniture for years and she takes you from easy projects through to the more difficult and intensive renovation of larger pieces, with plenty of tips on everything from bargaining for the best price to how to fix bubbles in veneer or replace missing moulding on picture frames.

     

    She also takes you through the process of making your hobby into a business - where and how to sell, how to keep track of your costs, and making sure that you're paying yourself enough for your time. At the same time, there's a chapter on developing your own individual style, which will take you the extra mile from a good business to a great one.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPractical Press
    Release dateJan 30, 2021
    ISBN9781393091967
    Refinishing Furniture for a Profit
    Author

    Anne Haclyffe

    Anne Haclyffe lives in France and runs a small business restoring old furniture and helping clients decorate their homes in both older and contemporary styles. She's also a keen baker, gardener and cat owner.

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      Book preview

      Refinishing Furniture for a Profit - Anne Haclyffe

      'Good bones'

      Buying the right stuff is about looking under the paint, the dirt, the rust, the gouges taken out of the wood or the fact that some toddler has crayoned all over the furniture, and seeing the real shape of what you're getting. Some experienced flea market buyers call this 'good bones'. If a bit of furniture is plug ugly, nothing you can do will save it.

      So first off, is it a nice shape? For instance, I have a rule for buying chairs; the chair has to want me to sit on it, or in it. It has to look comfortable and sturdy. If there are decorative mouldings, they ought to be nicely carved, not stuck on as an afterthought. Does the piece have character? This is very subjective, but you'll learn a lot by looking at good period furniture - visit a decorative arts museum, borrow some library books, or use Instagram, to get your eye in.

      Next, find out what it's made of. Is it veneer or solid wood? Look at the corners and edges; that's typically where veneer gets broken off. There's nothing wrong with veneer, but make sure you know what's underneath; plywood or solid wood is okay, but chipboard or MDF is not worth your while. If it's veneered but there are a few bubbles or chips, don't worry - that's easy to deal with. The same goes if there's a bit of moulding missing, though that requires a bit more skill to deal with.

      You can find out a lot by looking at the back of a piece of furniture or turning it over. For instance, if the back of a bookcase or the bottom of a drawer is made of plywood, it's probably twentieth century - though the plywood might be a replacement. If it's planks of solid wood, it's probably an older piece. (The backs of bookcases and dressers are often very, very rough - even on good furniture; if the piece was always going to stand against the wall, old-time carpenters thought there was no point making the back look pretty.)

      Cane chairs might have been caned by hand, weaving the cane from one side to the other, or the seat might be made from machine-woven matting that's been glued in - you'll be able to see from underneath. Hand-caned chairs are probably older and/or better quality.

      Turning picture frames round will show you what kind of wood they're made of and often gives you an indication of their age. You may even find the original framer's label. Sometimes, the back shows you that you've got a real find, even though the front is covered in globby purple paint.

      Look at other details such as the way the furniture is put together.

      Drawers with dovetail joints are usually signs of good quality and older furniture. Modern drawers are often just pegged together.

      Old style 'peasant' furniture is often fitted together with square wooden pegs rather than nails. It's a very solid way to attach piece of wood, as the peg compresses to fit the round hole drilled in the furniture, while the head remains handsomely square. Yes, square pegs in round holes are actually the right way to do things! (They're also quite easy to replace, as long as you can find a small piece of oak to use.)

      Chair legs that taper have been either carved or turned. Chair legs that are dead straight and square are usually cheaper modern work.

      'Wedged' tenons are a sign of hand crafted furniture - where, for instance, a three-legged stool has the legs inserted through holes in the seat, and wedges have then been driven in to ensure the legs fit tightly.

      Tip: Dirt and grime is your friend. Furniture that shows signs of damp, that is dirty, that's been stored in a barn and is covered in bird poop, or in a garage and is all smeared with oil and dribbled with paint, will sell more cheaply than it should. Learn to look beneath the dirt (and take a pack of hand wipes with you so you don't get covered with it).

      Top factors (besides dirt) that put off buyers and might let you get a great deal:

      missing or mismatched handles and knobs

      loose or missing hinges on chest lids or cabinet doors

      badly scratched paint

      missing pieces of moulding

      stained cushions on chairs

      chipped,bubbled or torn veneer

      smashed glass in cabinet doors

      split table tops or dresser tops

      rubbed off corners

      Look for what you can add or change. Obviously, the easiest thing to change is the finish. Imagine the piece in a different colour, or stripped down to the wood - does it look more appealing?

      Other things can also be easily changed; for instance, the handles on a chest of drawers or cabinet. Replacing 'mushroom' wooden pulls by bright ceramic pulls or sparkling glass handles, together with a paint job, can turn an ugly 70s piece into a charming bohemian one.

      It's not difficult to give a nice tabletop or cabinet legs. For instance, a long glass-fronted cabinet can be made into a stylish modern console table by giving it metal legs. Equally, if you see the legs and frame but the tabletop is spoiled, it's easy to fix. Old sewing machines may not be valuable as they are, but remove the machine and you can make a nice industrial-style side table from the base.

      Think of ways to reuse furniture and household items - and look out for small items like baskets, boxes, and lamp bases. Not only are they easy to fix up and sell, but they are great window dressing for your larger furniture pieces when you're marketing them. Vases, cast iron pots and urns, photo frames, magazine racks, spice racks, sets of coat hooks, can all be transformed and will, later on, help you display your larger pieces nicely.

      One of my best buys was a pair of rusty bench ends in cast iron. Stripped and painted white they looked glorious, then all I had to do was buy some planking, plane the planks smooth and slot them into the ends - hey presto, a beautiful garden bench.

      (Yeah, okay, I did paint the planks too. But that's not a whole lot more work.)

      Things to buy:

      dining chairs

      Louis XVI style chairs

      stools, ottomans

      garden furniture

      benches

      chaises longues and Louis style sofas/ canapés

      coffee tables

      occasional tables

      gate-leg and extendible tables

      console tables, side tables

      chests of drawers

      bookcases, shelving

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