Desk Restoration

Jim DeLaney

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Austintown, Ohio
Not a "Dave Quality" restoration, but I did manage to bring it back from the 'near dead.'

This desk, made in Grand Rapids sometime in the late twenties or early thirties, belonged to my Mother-in-Law who passed away about 25 years ago.

Since then, it's sat in a niece's basement or garage, and got wet, dirty, and musty. It had a lot of veneer separation due to moisture, and quite a few dents and dings. I did make some new mahogany veneer for several patches, too. The 'Soss style' hinges had all broken, and the pot metal bases of them had just crumbled away. I did manage to find the right size new Soss hinges for it, though.

Finish is red mahogany stain, sealed with shellac, then about six coats of Target EM8000cv conversion varnish.

BTW, the ink (and maybe coffee) stains in the pull-out writing surface were too deep to get out. They do look worse in the pictures than they do in 'real life,' though.

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Grand Rapids, Michigan, furniture city USA in its day, thanks for giving a new life to my local heratige, well done Jim:)

I did a little bit of research on that company, Tom, but couldn't find a catalog. I did discover that the logo in the picture was only used between 1927 and 1935, so that dates the desk pretty well. Also, the company made a lot of school furniture during the 20s, and up until the mid 60s.
 
That is a beautiful pice of furniture. Jim you did Avery nice job of restoration. The rings give it character and moves it to the antique category.
Very good.
David
 
That came out looking great, Jim. :thumb:

We've got a drop-leaf table from about the same era in our garage. The top needs refinishing, but it's not in too bad of shape. It belonged to my grandparents, and then my parents. I don't intend to keep it (we simply don't have the room nor the need for it), and nobody else in the family can use it, so it's going up for sale. I haven't decided if I should refinish it before selling it, or if I should just sell it as-is. As soon as I get it un-buried enough to take a few pics, I'll post them in a separate thread to see what the consensus says here.
 
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