Before and After

 

Rolltop Desk

This rolltop desk came to us in pretty bad shape, as you can see in the “before” picture. The desk was in many pieces, with most of the drawers falling apart. The glue joints in the desk’s base and the modesty panel were broken, with pieces cracked or missing. The finish on the desk, originally a much lighter oak color, had been finished over and had turned dark with age

We disassembled and stripped the desk, made new pieces as needed and sanded everything. The case, modesty panel and drawers were all reglued. When everything was fully prepped, we stained the desk, sealed the stain and sanded again. Then we applied several coats of finish, sanding before each one. Finally, we assembled the desk and delivered it.

The result was a functional and beautiful rolltop desk and a happy customer.

Before

After

Piano

Originally a player piano with a beautiful walnut veneer, this piece was “antiqued,” that is, painted, as many pieces were in the 1960s and 70s. Often, the antiquing was done to hide defects.

We disassembled the piano case and took out the keyboard and action. We hand stripped the case and stripped the smaller parts in our flow-over system. When the paint was off, we could see that some of the veneer was missing around and under the keyboard; veneer around the base was badly damaged; there was a nasty, deep scrape on one side and some severe, black water stains on the top: it was pretty clear why it had been painted!

We repaired or replaced the missing and damaged veneers, repaired the scrape and bleached out the stains. Then we sanded everything and filled the minor scratches, dents and chips so that it was all ready for finishing.

Then we stained the wood, toning in the new veneers to match the old ones, and sealed the stain. After the sealer was sanded we applied several coats of finish, sanding before each one. Finally we assembled the piano (this task includes cleaning and polishing all the hinges and other metalwork) and arranged delivery - for pianos we use specialist movers, not our own muscle. This is safer for the piano as well as for us!

Before

After