JAW DROPPING Art Deco vintage furniture restoration

[Music] hello everybody and welcome to another video today I'm going to be trying to save these Walnut Art Deco side tables that I found on Facebook Marketplace but these aren't actually technically side tables these were part of a vanity and for once you can't get mad at me for doing it I purchased these already taken apart they need a lot of love so stay tuned as I try to bring these Beauties back my name is Angie and I refinish furniture sometimes I paint and sometimes I don't but I always do what I can to say both pieces from the trash welcome to my workroom [Music] these sort of Transformations are always subjective I always have people that get angry when vanities are taken apart it really depends on the piece itself and where you live but around here vanities do not sell very well and a lot of these end up in the trash night tables on the other hand are hard to find especially decent quality ones so sometimes it just makes sense to do this like I said I purchased this already disassembled and these had clearly been used as nightstands for quite a while [Music] I'm going to start this process by removing the drawers and marking where each drawer belongs the drawer faces have really beautiful veneer on them and because they're book Matched these drawers really do belong in certain slots foreign I'm not really sure what happened in this drawer but there's some pretty significant staining there that I'm a bit concerned about we'll have to hit that with the sander and some oxalic acid and see what we can do having a look at the drawer faces themselves you can see especially around the edges of the handles each of these drawers has slightly different damage from the handles a lot of them were loose and when I went to remove the screws I had a really hard time with several of them you can see it's coming out very strangely here and just because a lot of the machine screws were actually bent at the end [Music] so any that were bent will get replaced with new ones and I had my little shop helper here not sure who was making sure things were going smoothly in the beginning [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] so the outside of each piece is completely fine this is the inside and this is where the shelf of the vanity would have attached and then the little board at the bottom there's some holes there some residual glue I'm gonna have to clean up and you notice the edge here is a lot darker this is actually a different type of wood that runs along the inside of the frame and then they've got the Walnut veneer on top of that as well as on the sides and if I flip this piece on its back and kind of peek up underneath you can see here that there is a different veneer on the underside which sandwiches the frame piece which is stained very dark here and then it will not veneer again like I said on the outside if I flip this right over this is kind of cool you can see how they created these rounded Corners to begin with where they just cut a series of slices basically in the wood and it allows it to bend and make this corner they also have a different type of veneer on the inside of the sides the drawer faces are also Walnut veneer but they have beautiful figure and their book match which means basically there's a line down the center and each side is a mirror image of the other and like I mentioned a lot of them have damage from the handles while the drawer faces are solid wood they are not solid Walnut as you can see here [Music] foreign sure what the Finish is so I'm going to try removing it with some methyl hydrate first if this is a shellac based finish which a lot of them were back in this time this will turn the Finish gummy and I can either scrape it off or scrub it off with the steel wool and I'm using very fine steel wool this reaction would happen quite quickly so generally if nothing's happened after about 20 seconds I can quite confidently say that this is not a shellac based finish and as you can see here there's some dirt coming off but none of the Finish and even using a little plastic scraper here there's just nothing coming off really except for what I just put on so it's safe to conclude that this is not shellac so my next guess would be lacquer lacquer gets dissolved with lacquer thinner and if this was a lacquer based finish the same thing would happen I would apply this and it would become a bit gummy but again nothing was really happening or at least quickly thank you [Music] foreign scrubbing this did eventually come off enough where I could just hand sand it but now I know that it will make more sense for me to use a chemical stripper on the rest of the piece [Music] and if I apply just a little bit of mineral spirits here you can see how beautiful that wood grain is underneath [Music] I do not know what happened here to this drawer it looks like it could be an ink stain but whatever it is I know that it's not going to be easy to remove if I can even remove it at all I'm going to be trying a few different methods to lighten this initially I tried some methyl hydrate that didn't work so I just tried some strippers sometimes that will loosen certain stains [Music] I got a little bit of the color off but not much [Music] so I decided to just let that dry out temporarily when I went and sanded the drawer boxes pretty much all of the veneer I'm going to be hand sanding but I'm using my surf prep here to make quick work of these drawers [Music] look I'm using my favorite stripper here which is Circa 1850 it's methylene chloride free and it doesn't require neutralizing which is really nice I typically just apply it with a chip brush and let it sit normally I don't have an issue with it drying out but I got distracted by doing a couple other things at the same time so you can see here it's it's a little bit dry so all I did is I just I scraped this off and then I went into another very light coat and that was fine foreign [Music] [Music] so just like that strip that is at the top this base is not Walnut I'm not 100 sure what type of wood it is but it's a very light wood and you can see here there would be if I left it natural quite a contrast and I don't mind the reddish brown Walnut with the sort of yellowish lighter wood but it was at this point that I started thinking about what I could do to the base I could paint the base I could leave it natural like this I could stain it and what I ended up opting to do is keep the contrast that it had before so as long as I can get the Walnut veneer to a point where I can just put a clear coat on it that would be great and then I can use a darker stain maybe some toners to try to get a nice contrast with this lighter wood here on the base but first I need to finish stripping both of the carcasses here and the drawer faces fill in some holes do some veneer patching sanding and even though these aren't that big they did take quite a while foreign [Music] to do the tops I decided to scrape instead of using a stripper it's a nice flat area and I knew that it would scrape off pretty well and this particular top is the worst of the two and there's a couple of different reasons for that first of all there are a couple of water stains but there's also a big oil stain here and as I'm stripping this off and having a good look I think I'm starting to understand what would have happened here most of the finish on this top was not intact what I think happened is someone used either some sort of oil or a product like restore finish over the whole top to try to get this top looking better the problem when you do that on finish that's not intact is that the oil or the product will seep down into the wood grain that is exposed and often stain it [Music] foreign and you can see here on the other top that was not a problem at all they very well may have used the same product but because the Finish was still intact it didn't have that same oil staining everywhere this top had a different issue it had a little dented area right in the middle so I'll have to address that [Music] [Music] I'm going to be using oxalic acid to try to minimize the damage to the tops foreign here is a really good example of why certain oils over finish that's not intact is so difficult to restore later on I'm hoping this comes through okay on the camera but you can see as I'm brushing the oxalic acid over top it's immediately fish eyeing and resisting all over the top of this one particular piece I'm getting fish eye and that is from oils that have penetrated in certain areas on the Beast there's technically two types of furniture oils there is drying oils and non-drying oils and while some oils and waxes can actually help preserve a piece some just make it harder down the road [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign so this is after the first coat of oxalic acid has dried it hasn't been rinsed off yet but it's dried and you can still see a fair bit on the worst top of the water staining and again that oil stain is still there the other top turned out pretty good after one coat but because I need to do a second coat of oxalic on the bad top I'm gonna do it also on the good job I'm having a look here this was the problem top you can see several areas where there is still staining visible if I was putting a stain on this this might not be too bad but I don't want to stain it I want to just put a clear finish on it so I'm going to go ahead let this dry and then apply one more coat of oxalic acid generally if a stain is not gone by the time the second coat is over with it's not going to come out so fingers crossed [Music] oxalic acid needs to be completely removed with water so I'm just using a rig soaked in water and I'll do that a couple of times until I'm sure that it's all gone and then let it dry out completely foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so here's where we are after two coats of oxalic everything's dried and rinsed you can see that Bloody oil stain is just still there I'm gonna go ahead and sand with 180 grit sandpaper and then I'm going to address this little depressed area here on the other nightstand normally for something like this I would use the edge of a hot iron the viewer actually sent me this from my Amazon wishlist and I'm finally able to use it in a video this is a little soldering iron and it comes with multiple tips so I'm picking the one that is the closest to the width of this depressed area and basically what I'm going to do is use some water and heat very concentrated to try to steam the dent out now this doesn't work all the time sometimes it works amazing sometimes it just doesn't work at all it took about 10 minutes and I think this is about as good as I'm going to get it it just it raised to a certain point and then it just stopped raising so that's where I need to stop I'm okay with it though it's way better than it was [Music] this one random nail sticking out here of the side of one of the pieces and these are such a bugger to get out without damaging the veneer so I'm trying to be very careful here I added some walnut wood filler here where all the holes were I'm now ready to sand the sides I'm going to be hand sanding this I could use a power sander including my surf prep but these rounded edges are so delicate that whenever I have any sort of waterfall style furniture I really like the hand sand if you remove the Finish beforehand either by scraping or stripping this part's really not that bad I'm using a 150 grit sand pad here and I'll do another light sanding with 180. [Music] yes this is a lot of work this is absolutely a labor of love while this Art Deco style isn't necessarily rare they are getting harder to find in a condition that can be restored like I said in the beginning vanities don't usually sell that well around here it may be different in other parts of the world but so many of them get thrown out so even though this was an intact when I bought it I still want to do what I can to bring this back I think the wood grain is absolutely beautiful and the drawer faces as well as the cabinet itself but I still have a lot of work to do before I can put my top coat on thank you a mapping to use a water-based stain for the base and that little piece of trim at the top that was initially dark I'm taping off all of the areas here so that I don't get Stained on the rest of the piece foreign and then once I'm taped up and ready to go I just grabbed a little rag here and while normally you would wipe on the stain and immediately wipe it back I'm actually not wiping very much of it off I'm letting it dry and then doing subsequent coats this is going to give me a much darker base and with a water-based stain it dries really quickly and it's easy to do this technique this isn't going to be the final color though this is just a base coat [Music] once I have all of the trim stained I'm going to let it dry and work on some repairs before coming back to it [Music] this hide glue actually needs to be warm before it's used so I usually just do a little dip in a warm bath for a couple of minutes and it softens enough to be able to be used one of these drawers needs a little bit of attention here on the back you can see that it is separated from the side and the glue block is not connected anymore and when I popped the glue block off I could see why that was happening the veneer that they put on the back of the drawer front has this almost like a paper tape on it and the glue block ran right over top of the paper tape so it was only glued to the paper and not the wood itself so it didn't get a very good Bond it pulled apart so I just need to scrape that paper off and re-glue this [Music] all right [Music] foreign this chip on one of the top drawers you can see the different layers here we've got the solid wood drawer face and then we have a layer of veneer which is the substrate and then this beautiful rolled Walnut on the top in order to replace the top layer of veneer I also have to replace this missing part here on the substrate so I'm heading into one of my veneer drawers and looking to see if I have any Walnut Burl or something that would work and these two are beautiful for sure but they're not quite the right pattern this piece isn't either but it does have some areas that could possibly work now when I mentioned earlier about book matching this is a perfect example whenever you see on a drawer face or on the front or side of the piece a pattern that looks to be a mirror image this is almost well it is always veneer and they call it book matching so because this drawer front is book Matched I need to find a patch with green that is similar in Direction and color to the opposite side and I think I did find a little spot here now I have this tool for paper crafting but a few days ago it dawned on me that this might make a great cutter for veneer so I'm going to give it a try here it's just a little rotary blade that worked awesome so that may be my go-to for cutting veneer so basically all I'm doing is narrowing down the part that I need to use I'll keep checking it making sure that it's going to work and then I don't cut too much off I've replaced little chips like this before with wood putty and then used markers and stuff to mimic wood grain but it's always best to use real wood grain when you can and I did have this piece a walnut Burl here so I'm just going to patch it with this foreign foreign the most dramatic patch I ever did so this water-based stain has completely dried now and I need to seal it before I do anything else so I'm using some Mohawk vinyl sealer this is going to completely seal the stain and separate it from any coloring and top coats that I follow with you can really see the contrast here so what I'm going to do to replicate that is use some Mohawk toner and the color I'm using is dark red Walnut oh [Music] obviously I'm trying to be careful with the overspray but even if there is a little bit that gets on I can just do a very light sanding to remove it [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] of these little tables are sitting on dollies as you can see there that's why they're wobbling they're not actually unstable in any way [Music] once I get down to the bottom here I'm actually going to use the same odi's oil right over the stain and the vinyl sealer and the toner this is the part I'm the most excited about putting these on the drawer faces the wood grain is unbelievable and the second the ODS touches it it just comes to life [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] I really hope you're enjoying watching me bring these back to life but I also know that the original look isn't always for everyone so let me know in the comments below whether you like this flip you think I did it justice or if I should have done something a bit more modern me personally I love these just as they are [Music] thank you we're only getting around to that one little drawer there with the pouch and you can see because it's obviously not from the same era or the same tree it's a little bit of a different color so I'm gonna need to work to blend that in a little bit more in terms of color as well as figuring in the wood [Music] so I'm going to be using these two colors to sort of do a little bit of painting I don't normally like to do this until after I've sealed the piece because the color as you've seen changes so drastically once you put a finish on it and the orizole here is plenty dry this isn't going over fresh odors oil and it does stick really well once this is finished though I will do one more coat of oaties over this just to make sure it's completely sealed and all I'm trying to do here is just sort of hide this batch and try to help it blend in a bit more [Music] next on my seemingly never ending list is to polish up these handles now these I do believe are solid brass I am not really sure what condition they're going to be in under here but I'm going to use some Brasso to clean them up these don't necessarily have to look a hundred percent perfectly brand new I don't mind a little bit of patina but obviously there's too much going on here right now [Music] thank you [Music] now there was a step in this process that isn't shown here on this video because I didn't realize my SD card had run out of space but basically what that was was using some powered feed and wax on the drawer boxes so inside the sides underneath you can see here it makes quite a big difference [Music] I'm sure my community post a couple of days ago about moving my office from the craft room downstairs to our spare bedroom upstairs I actually set the camera down on the desk while I was trying to fish some wires up from behind I had to ask for a little bit of help you could help and help he did I still have a bit of sound deadening for him to put up but I'm loving this new space and it has a much better view than the wall that I used to look at good foreign so just a quick recap of what I used for this I stripped everything with Circa 1850 I used Timber mate wood filler to patch the little holes I used some man water-based wood stain in the color American Walnut [Music] I use Mohawk easy vinyl sealer and Mohawk Ultra Classic toner in the color dark red Walnut I used odi's universal oil and a 1500 grit Mercury Milan pad to apply it these Mohawk graining markers hard feet and wax in the drawers and Brasso [Music] this came after I filmed that last part I decided to add just a little extra protection to the top only using the odi's wood butter and the wood butter differs from the universal oil in that has a higher wax content and this little smear here that I put will be enough to do this whole one top but of course I'm applying it to both tops [Music] I knew when I picked these up on Facebook Marketplace that they were special but this is one of those projects that even though you could see what they could be in the beginning at the end you're still shocked at how beautiful they turned out I just want to say a huge thank you for all of your support and kindness all of your likes and comments and shares really helps my channel out and if you like this sort of content please consider subscribing I try to put out three videos a month time to end the suspense and show you what these two Art Deco repurposed side tables look like thanks for watching [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Transcend Furniture Gallery

Views: 216,008

Keywords: furniture, furniture flipping, painted furniture, furniture painting, diy, diy furniture, repurposed, refinished furniture

Id: 3lUR3P2zGtc

Length: 35min 3sec (2103 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 05 2023