The customer had this lovely cabinet from the beginning of the 20th Century, a late Art Nouveau design with curved 'wings' to hold two side drawers and straight, stylised lines in the rest of the piece.
It had suffered quite a bit: the wood was damaged by wood worms, one of the side drawers was loose at the back, somebody had added a thin piece of board in the center part of the cabinet that was not even cut to measure or centered, and the worse part -the whole piece had been smeared in a thick coat of dark, gloomy brown paint!
It needed some caring hands to go back to its past glory, that's for sure! As per the customer's request, I painted it in an off-white tone, distressing the surface to highlight the lovely curves and crevices. But I left both side drawers and top box in their original veneer finish to get a nice contrast, among other minor repairs that are detailed in the 'Making Of' part below. Much better now, don't you think?
Measures: the top surface is 42 x 33cm, the cabinet is 70cm high, 67cm wide.
THE TRANSFORMATION, STEP BY STEP
The cabinet, prior its restauration. Note that, at the back, underneath the hideous layer of brown colour the yellow and red stripes of the Catalan flag were still visible! Could that belong to the original design of the piece?
The fist thing to go was the flimsy board piece badly nailed in the center part between the drawers... and all the hardware got removed too -but saved, of course.
Then came the sanding: soft in the areas that would be painted afterwards, deep in the drawer parts, to reveal the original veneer.
Treating the wood -some areas were in a pretty bad condition... the cabinet, wrapped up to spend some days curing.
Now, the fun part starts: painting several coats of paint in an off-white tone
Then, distressing the surface to highlight the curves and crevices of the cabinet.
Final touches: polishing the hardware (except from the key and hinges, none of it was original, but at least it was old and good quality bronze). I had to change the keyhole plate for one of my collection because the one that I found inside a drawer when the cabinet was delivered was too big, see the last picture.
I also repaired one of the side drawers, that was loose at the back.
Varnishing the cabinet and side drawers,
Then, as I usually do, polishing it all for a smooth, satin finish.
Putting the hardware back in place (see that the keylock is upside-down for closing the lid on top), plus adding a cute cotton cord to replace the ragged original one.
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