Sam Maloof

I have been pretty bummed out the last couple weeks after learning of Sam Maloof's passing.  At 93 years old, we was the hero and role model for woodworkers and craftsmen worldwide. If you don't know much about him, his story is fascinating. You can read more about his life here. I became familiar with Maloof's work years ago, and immediately loved his beautiful designs and personal philosophy. For years I've wanted to build a rocking chair based on his design, and I think it may finally be time to do it. I've always thought that if I had to invite 5 famous people to dinner, he would be one of them. He was brilliant.

The End of Katrina for Me

I’ve spent the last few weeks completing the restoration of a very old armoire. This was the last Katrina flooded piece for me, so it had extra meaning beyond the usual project. When I went to evaluate the armoire some time ago, I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at. It had been piled in a carport for 3 years. Many of the joints had failed and there were pieces everywhere. It also had that all-too-familiar lifeless look with stains and grime that is typical of furniture that spent some time in the watery sludge that overtook much of New Orleans. When the client accepted my estimate, I was surprised. A piece of furniture that is that far gone must be something special to embrace the possibility that it can return to its former glory. Of course, there were no photos of the armoire to reference, just the parts that remained.

It’s always an interesting prospect starting a project like this. In many ways, it’s hard to know where to start and even harder to get motivated to start after spending so much time with flooded furniture. The only parts that were intact were the doors, so that is where I started. The process of cleaning, stripping, bleaching, sanding, straightening, and conditioning the wood is a long, arduous endeavor. This armoire had a lot of parts, and all of them got the treatment. While I suppose it would have been easier if would have ignored some of the hidden areas, it didn’t seem right to do that. If I had to put my clothes in there, I’d want to know every last bit of Katrina was gone. Most of the armoire was nailed together, and the old iron cut nails left an array of stains. Most of the nails were so brittle and rusted that they broke off in the wood in both directions. I don’t know how many hours I spent just removing all those nails, but it was a lot.

After weeks of getting the bulk of the preparations done, it was time to figure out the jigsaw puzzle and make this into an armoire once again. Murphy’s Law was at work throughout this project. Every time I thought I’d treated each part, another turned up. I had to recreate many missing parts as well, and each time I thought I had all the pieces there was always one more to make. This carried through right until the end. When we delivered the piece last Saturday, I realized I brought everything but the skeleton keys for the doors. The armoire had one last laugh at my expense, but I’d like to think I won the battle. It all went together again and it was hard to believe this was the pile of parts I’d seen months earlier in that carport. When we got it fully assembled, the customer only said one word: “WOW”. That was all I needed to hear.

Cleaning Up Messes

It's been crazy busy the last couple weeks in the shop. I completed work on eight dining chairs and delivered them yesterday. I have never seen such a pathetic finishing job as what was on these chairs. The amount of dust, drips, runs, and poor application were inexcusable in my opinion. I just can not believe any finisher with a conscience charged for this work! With a lot of wet sanding, some color correction, and a hand rubbed finish applied, the chairs felt silky smooth and looked beautiful. The customer was very pleased and I was happy to have that whole bunch done.

Although I normally do not refinish exterior doors, I made an exception for the same customer with the chairs mentioned above. Their front door was a full 11 feet tall! I spent most of last Saturday up on a ladder stripping, sanding, repairing, and staining the door. It took a few more trips over there this week to get the marine grade topcoats applied. I remembered why I do not do exterior doors. If I can not bring it to the shop and work on it in a reasonable way, it's quite difficult to work efficiently. The door did come out beautifully and I'll be quite content to not get back up on the ladder for awhile.

Aside from the usual time spent daily on the ongoing armoire restoration, I took in another 6 chairs for repair. I did not need more chairs - that put the total to 22 chairs here last week. These chairs won the prize for having the most glue dumped in every joint, yet every joint failed. At least no one had driven nails through everything like I usually encounter. They also had about 40 years of wax buildup on the finish. They looked and felt a lot different when completed. Getting the finish clean and the joints solid was long overdue. Some weeks it seems I'm just doomed to clean up one mess after another. At least the week rounded out with 5 normal web caning jobs. I also received a beautiful old rocking chair with a hand caned seat that is falling apart. I got so burnt out on rattan work early last month, but already miss it after a few weeks. It will be nice to do a normal seat - not round, oddly shaped, blind caned, wrapped, or anything else - just good old fashioned 7 step cane pattern.

Happy 2009

I’ve been getting a lot of requests to update my blog, and it’s obviously long overdue.  It’s been well over a year since my last update.  A good part of my time is devoted to working in the shop, but this past year brought a wonderful surprise – my son.  He is the best, and it is difficult to get motivated to work some mornings when it is such a joy to play with him.  Between all that comes with being a new father and running a continuously growing workshop, there is little time to write.

If you are a frequent visitor to the web site, you know that I update fairly often with pictures and descriptions of the latest projects. If it seems as though those updates have been happening less often, it is because I have had some projects that have lingered in the shop for some time. Today I finally finished a pair of rattan chairs I've had for some time. Clearly this is not the sort of routine cane or rush weaving I usually do, nor is it even a binder cane weave I've seen before. With the help of some other pros from the Wicker Woman's forum, books, and a good amount of head scratching, I finally succeeded. Usually when I get a seat apart, it's pretty obvious how it went together. This one was a mystery. I don't like to lose to a chair, though. I just hope I don't see another one of these for awhile!

My other two long term restorations are cabinets damaged from Katrina - the last two flooded items I have waiting. They are both major restorations: stained, broken, parts missing, etc. With any luck I'll have them both done in another few weeks. I'm so ready to be done with flood restorations that I've started turning them away. It is time to move on. I'm always a bit surprised when a new client contacts me about restoring flooded furniture after it has been sitting for three and a half years.

In addition to a slew of chair repairs, refinishing a Heywood Wakefield bed, restoring several yacht cabinet doors, and the normal caning work that trickles in, I also undertook the caning of some Cesca chairs from a client in Houston. It was a lot of caning as there were four seats with 100 holes each, and two backs blind caned with 86 holes each. I had quoted prices for the seats over the phone and was unaware that the chair backs were coming as well. After presenting the written estimate for the costs of both the seats and backs to the client, I was told to proceed. I ordered extra cane stock to be on the safe side, and I was glad I did. I went through about 2 weeks of problems with two of my suppliers. Apparently paying for overnight shipping means getting it a week later. Despite the supply delays and the rigors of blind caning, I completed everything and sent off the invoice. To my surprise, the client had a fit about the bill despite seeing everything in writing ahead of time. I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but I was glad I had a paper trail of communication to document my side of things. I think they just wanted to weasel out of paying the bill (as they admitted to considering buying 'fake' replacement seats and backs which are considerably cheaper). The long and short of it is that they agreed to satisfy the bill. I normally have such excellent customers who appreciate quality and are reliable. It always throws me off when I encounter one who is difficult. That is a fast way to insure we won't be doing business again.

This morning I picked up three more chairs. All of them are to be restored and recaned, and all of them are in pretty rough shape. These were new clients and they had a beautiful home. On top of that, they were super nice people. When I left, I had seven chairs in the truck. This happens a lot, it seems, but I don't mind. These were obviously people who value their furniture and are willing to have it treated right. Even though the temperature hadn't climbed out of the 40's when I was there, the woman carried chairs wearing her bathrobe... You've got to love the folks in New Orleans.

This afternoon's task is to finish up somebody else's dirty work. Last Saturday I spent a few hours rubbing out a table that had been refinished by someone else. It was a horrible finishing job. The surface was rough, dusty, and orange peeled. I don't know how any finisher with a conscience could let a table leave the shop looking like that. The eight chairs around the table were even worse. There are drips everywhere, uneven color, and the finish feels like a piece of old leather. I asked the client who did this so that I'm sure never to refer any work to them, and I'm still waiting to hear.