Furniture scholar Dean Fales noted in American Painted Furniture, 1660-1880, “Painting preserves and embellishes furniture, and it surely is economical. These three qualities are the main reasons for the great popularity of this pleasing lesser art. It could be performed by both amateurs and professionals, and its appeal was widespread. Since it is not constantly striving toward the heights of style, painted furniture can be an accurate reflection of the everyday tastes of regular people.” I’ve long been a fan of grain painting. Any knowledgeable antiques dealer will tell you that painted decoration was a staple form of ornamentation in pre-industrial cabinetshops. There are so many plain-grain chests, beds, and tables which have been layered with pigments to simulate...
When we brought this Victorian mirror into the studio last year, we had to handle it very carefully. It had been heavily damaged in a fire to the point that the top third of the frame had essentially converted to charcoal. We were very glad that the owners wished to restore the mirror as much as possible to its former glory, so we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. First, we had to stabilize everything structurally. After removing the old, broken glass, the upper ornamentation was sealed with multiple coats of shellac to lock in the pervasive smoke smell. We brushed on several applications of wood hardener, then carefully repaired the trim with various formulations of epoxy. Several...
This week I finished building a pine slant-lidded chest over two drawers for Popular Woodworking Magazine. But they don’t care about the chest. They’re looking at the grain painting. A while back, Megan asked if I’d be write an article about grain painting for an upcoming issue. She told me I could just whip up a small pine box to use as a canvas for the article. “Seems simple enough”, I thought. It was… until I asked my wife if there was any use for a new chest in our house. We both brought our ideas to the table and ended up with the slanted lid to showcase the graining and make accessing the contents inviting and two drawers because drawers are...
