Closet Door? From Fabric Swatches to Daleks.

The next project shall be, a closet door barn style. Only maybe with fabric as an accent wall:

So,  fabric. While I'm secure enough with my masculinity to be looking at swatches, I'm not knowledgeable enough to understand half of what I'm looking at. This is a classic example of life imitating art.

Remember that episode of Coupling, you know the one where Steve sees Sally naked, the same day he has to make a decision about decorating styles with his soon-to-be-live-in girlfriend, Susan? Here's one of his best monologues ever below.

Anyhow, this next project involves a little carpentry, hanging some hardware. and. shudder. fabric.
I'm this close to loosing it. Wines, earth tones, grays, or blues? Modern, contemporary, or traditional?
Honestly, I don't care to have opinions on fabric, either.

Finishing Ernest: Waxing, Buffing, and Future Work

Waxing this guy felt counter intuitive. Didn't I just spend months cleaning wax and dirt off to now put it back on?

A Convo with Tom Smitley eased my fears, as he assured me, the wax & dirt was what i wanted off.
Now I wanted to put a coat of protective wax on less the dirt.

When waxing one cannot put too much on. Apply sparingly with no regard to the grain of the wood. Then, allowing to dry over night, with a soft cloth, (old t shirt, cheese cloth, etc) buff with the grain of the wood.

Let's just call this a really good shoulder and upper back workout.
(As my roommate teased and sassed me with "Wax on, wax off, Danielson")


Enter Ernest, so named because he was a project done in earnest:

 

Just remember, that he went from this:

to this:

Must say that it cleaned up rather nicely, and is usable in the way that I will neither destroy my things nor the desk.
After the jump are things that are going to have to be completed by a professional. However, for all intents and purposes, Ernest is done. (Insert appropriate emoticon here)

The Great Knob Hunt

What do early american furniture makers and my whippet, Yardley, have in common? For which ever reason they both fancy turned wood drawer pulls. However, Yardley saw them better as chew toys than on the desk.

Ernest would need new hardware and wood pulls were out of the question. After much research and time spent on etsy, ebay, and various hardware supply sites, browsing through various pressed glass, cut class, rosette, brass lion heads, bail, and antique pulls, i found a set close to the period and size of the originals.

Please note that I had reservations about this. They are reproductions and scream "grandma furniture." Moreover, at around $8 each, this threw me over budget. (Didn't want to spend more than $200 total) 4 knobs with shipping was about $40. Add on the replacement pull for the top ($6 at anthropologie) and I'd just gone over the $200 dollar mark.

Still, it worked out. The next post will show the end result.

Assessment and Critique. Almost Done.

When redoing a piece of furniture there is always a step by step process: cleaning, stripping, sanding, staining, and finishing. Being lazy and really needing a desk to use, I kinda wanted to have a finished project in front of me STAT. Since cleaning left me with really beautiful results, I opted to skip stripping,  sanding, and re-staining. However there would be touch ups needed. The following post is a critical review of the desk. After evaluating the Pro's and Con's, figuring out what could be fixed and what would have to be lived with for the time being, I decided to do a little staining to touch up some parts, and then wax the piece up with paste wax.  With another trip to the hardware store to get wood glue ($7), red mahogany & dark walnut stain ($10), restore-a-finish ($6), paste wax ($12), shelf brackets ($2), and a pack of straight edge razors to clean the residue off of the glass doors ($2),  Ernest was ready to shine.


Pro's:
Grain Emphasis

Original Finish

(can you tell from the pic above that this is what it will look like completely finished?
The above shot came from right before the waxing)

Nothing but future work to do from this point on, next is the cons.

Treating Dirty Thirsty Wood

After consulting with first my father, the king of do-it-yourself projects, friend Tom Smitley, an owner of an amazing antique store on antique row, and the internet, a plan was formed. Before figuring out what to do with Ernest, I had to see what laid underneath all of that wax and dirt build up. This meant lots of scrubbing and cleaning while being very careful not to remove the underlying finish.

This leg of the journey starts at the Hardware store. Items purchased? A can of linseed oil, turpentine, and four aught gauge steel wool. Total cost? $20

Now you may ask, why linseed oil and turpentine? Turpentine is a solvent. It will help loosen the crap as the ultra fine steel wool takes it off the wood. Linseed Oil is a conditioner and a treatment. It will absorb into the wood making it both swell and re-hydrate. While inexpensive, it's messy and not eco-friendly. The old peanut butter jar used to hold the cleaning mixture is now sealed while i figure out where and how to dispose of it.

Back to the desk, rather the process of cleaning him. It took about 2 - 4 hours per cleaning with a total of five cleanings. Adding two separate sessions for the doors (removing them first) and leaving a generous week in between to for the wood to absorb what it could from the oils, the task took about a month to complete.

Pictorial step by step below

American Empire Style: A Brief History

The phrase "American Empire" is a contradiction in terms. Empire, connoting nobility, royalty, and imperialism, was exactly what the early Americans were creating an establishment against. So what then, was at the seed? An Empire, rather one of sorts, built on capitalism and the concept of "freedom". The Empire styling was borrowed from overseas, as is much of American culture. At the root of the design trend is Napoleon occupied France.  

It's turn of the century France. Napoleon has come to power and has decided to be decadent in the stylings of Lois the 14th, the sun king. Taking from the architectural notes of over a century prior, the second french empire style was born. Second French Empire is mostly known for its grand overstated presence, gold filigree, ornamentation, and Egyptian theme design style. 

The furniture quickly spread influencing Italy and America within the next  30-40 years. (Yes. That was considered quick back then before the days of email and oil fueled trans-continental travel.) By the late 1820's,  American furniture makers were creating pieces with ornate claw, paw, and dolphin feet, columns capped with bronze, and bronze filigree; some pieces overdone to the point where form dwarfed function.  Then as the style became a practice, the designs centered around simple curved legs, harp or lyre scroll accents, dark satin polished mahogany hard woods, burled veneers, and simple elegance.

So came the birth of American Empire furniture. From 1830 - 1860 was the biggest production. Then a later, more modest, trend emerged in the 1890 - 1920's. You can find examples of good collections of such furniture today, like in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, or in the Red Room of the White House. 

Below  are more examples.

Meet Ernest, the American Empire Secretary

Searching craigslist for months proved to be a bit exhausting but eventually paid off.

One day, I came across a listing for an American Empire Secretary priced at $100.

Definitely a fixer-upper, still.. Good bones, clean lines, simple & elegant form...

Just my style.

Pics below.