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WRIGHT HORNE Furniture Maker Fine Custom Furniture Made By Hand Restorations - Conservation Greenwich, New Jersey |
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Restoration Services
While we revel in the artistic experience of new work,
we also realize that we can learn a great deal by studying the work of
those who have preceded us. We therefore offer restoration and repair
services to our customers.
Restoration is a great learning opportunity. It gives us the chance to study the long-term outcomes of decisions that were made by the furniture maker – what worked and what didn’t. It gives us the chance to view close up and personal the results of the various design decisions the maker made – again, what worked and what didn’t. It is a way of paying homage to earlier furniture makers, as well as a way to inform the construction of our new pieces.
Hopefully, others who come after us will take the time and show enough interest to study our work.
Recent Examples 
- Making new doors for an 1820 desk and bookcase in the Hepplewhite style. We were able to discern that the original doors were decorated with highly figured veneer, with banding and inlays, and so that’s what we built as replacements. Of course, we had to make sure the finish of the new doors matched the finish of the original piece.
- Replacing missing veneer on the base of a Duncan Phyffe 1820 card table. The base was sculptural with curved surfaces. We made our own thick figured veneer, matched patterns, and glued it on in the traditional manner with hide glue.
- Repairing the broken rear hoops of numerous Windsor chairs, which are prone to failure.
- Reglueing dozens of stick chairs (Windsors, plank bottoms, ladder-back, etc.), and arranged for the reweaving of rush seats for those that had them originally.
- Rebuilding completely a Georgian desk and bookcase that had suffered the desperate fate of being built originally with wood that warped severely over time, compromising its many repair attempts because of its intrinsic faults. We disassembled the piece entirely, straightened all warped wood, rebuilt the drawers after replacing the bottom edges that had worn out and reassembled it. The piece was unusable before and is now restored to live on in service to its owner.
Finishes and Refinishing
We rarely strip the old finish off a piece. Anyone who has watched "Antiques Roadshow" on PBS can attest to the high level of concern the experts have when a piece has been refinished, thereby significantly lowering its value.
We have developed a number of techniques to restore the original finish that give satisfactory results.
Restoration Costs vs. Restored Value
When a piece is brought to us for restoration or repair, it is important we believe that our customer knows if the cost will exceed the value of the piece after the work is done. We always give an estimate before work begins, and we are honor-bound to advise our customer if, in our opinion, the piece will not be worth the time and money to be repaired. Sometimes our customer’s decision to proceed regardless is based on sentimental reasons. We certainly understand that, and, of course, we do the work with that in mind.