There’s a lot of ugly masquerading as lovely out there

Adventures in furniture restoration

Three carved legs plus one ready for carving. image author

My husband is an architectural woodturner. Which means, in essence, that he makes round things out of wood. He makes things like chair legs, porch posts, stair balusters, and decorative bits.

Much of what he does is for restoration projects. If you’re building a new home and putting in a staircase, you’ll probably buy balusters from the building supply. It’s less expensive and they have lots of nice patterns available. If your home is older and you need to have just a couple replaced because someone, or something, over the years busted a few out, you’ll go to a guy like Jim because the building supply store doesn’t stock the design you have and it is cheaper to have a few custom-made than to replace the whole set.

The case is the same for old furniture. If you’ve a beloved chair that’s been handed down through the generations and it needs a little care, a guy like Jim can help with the repair of broken parts.

Detail of leg to be reproduced. image author

The thing about fine furniture, though, is that it is often decorated with woodcarving. Other woodturners might do a little carving from time to time. Jim doesn’t care…