Furniture Restoration May Be More than Just a Do-It-Yourself Project

Furniture Restoration May Be More than Just a Do-It-Yourself Project

Furniture restoration is heard in a variety of settings. If you like watching do-it-yourself shows, shows that help determine the value of antiques, like the Antique Road Show on PBS and other similar programs, you may someday find yourself looking around your home and thinking you’ve got some furniture restoration projects you wouldn’t mind taking on yourself.

Some furniture restoration projects are fairly simple and straightforward. Getting rid of a waxy build-up on an antique table or roll top desk, for example, is a project that may be different and much more difficult than what it was originally anticipated to be. What you thought was just build-up may actually be deterioration of the item’s finish.

Before immediately going to furniture refinishing, however, there are steps you can take to make sure you are doing the job right. In some cases, by removing the build-up, you can see that the project may be as simple as cleaning the surface with a soft rag and mineral spirits. In other cases, refinishing furniture is the only way you can fix the problem; this is often...