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.
