Elise Hyatt - Dipped, Stripped, and Dead  

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Acknowledgments

Id like to thank my editor, Ginjer Buchanan, for work above and beyond the line of duty on this manuscript.

Furniture-Refinishing Tips and Tricks

Picking Up Good Furniture Gone Bad

The first thing you need to know about picking up used furniture cheaply is that you should under no circumstances imitate Dyces method. Im not saying you shouldnt look for furniture that someone else has discardeddepending on where you live, this can be a very good place to find itbut you definitely shouldnt go Dumpster diving, at least not without getting lessons from someone who knows how to do it.

So where should you find furniture that can be restored to its former glory or be made to look like it had a former glory? Well start with the most likely and expensive source.

Used-furniture stores. See if there is a good one in your area. These are often like Shabby Chic, operate on consignment, and have already fixed pieces. Some others, thoughand these are usually cheaperhave a mix of already finished and whatever was in the last estate sale. In thoseparticularly if they have a section called fixer-uppers or something like ityou can find decent, solid furniture that will probably not have too many coats of paint or any structural flaws.

The local thrift shops. Its been my experience that what Id call the best-known thrift stores, those everyone mentions as another word for thrift store, are almost as expensive as the used-furniture stores. But look in your phone book. If you live in a city of any size at all, chances are that there is at least one off-brand thrift store. In Charlotte, North Carolina, it took me some years to find it, because it was attached to a no-kill cat shelter, which it supported. So keep your eyes open. These less well-known stores often price things at a fraction of the price of the big stores. For one, they tend to have less floor space and they want the furniture to move.

Garage sales and flea markets. Note that I didnt mention estate sales, because unless you can buy a whole lot in bulk, they tend to be overpriced. Garage sales vary wildly in price, according to the neighborhood in which theyre held and the time of year. Winter ones are cheaper. And garage sales in middle-class neighborhoods are cheaper and often yield better finds than those in the better neighborhoods, where people are likely to think their stuff is worth more than it really is.

Local for-sale ads. Ive found some surprisingly good pieces in these, particularly when people are moving and selling in a hurry. Not usually antiques or anything resembling them, but decently built wood furniture at a low price. And some of it can be made to look stunning with very little work.

Trash. Yes, I said you shouldnt go Dumpster climbing. But in my hometown, and probably a lot of others, people put their discarded furniture a little to the side of the trash cans on trash pickup days. Back when I was doing this semiprofessionally, I knew the trash pickup days for every neighborhood in town. Most of the time, the drive-bys showed nothing of interest, but once every few weeks there would be an armoire or a table. Even in college dorms and student apartments, people often set their furniture to the side of the Dumpster, instead of in it. Its worth taking a look at the end of the term.

So You See Something Interesting

So, lets say you just found something you think might be a good piece under all the grime and the coats of paint. How do you know if its really good? Or even acceptable?

Well, lets say you picked up Dyces little tea table, lucky you, and youre examining it to see whether you should talk the garage-sale holder down from the twenty bucks he wants.

Signs that you probably shouldnt buy, or you should at least beware that it is not a good piece:

They tell you its good quality because its really heavy. Plywood and the various conglomerates are much heavier and denser than real wood. If a piece is disproportionately heavy, the chances are good it is not unaltered wood.

You can see that staples were used in the construction.

The edges of any carving look smooth, like the wood was pushed in, rather than carved. This is another good indication that its not unaltered wood. Ive recently seen this type of pressed decoration advertised as a plus for a chair, and Im wondering if theres a fad for it or the advertiser was insane. At any rate, its not good wood.

Signs that you might have a find on your hands:

The piece is not perfectly symmetrical. Before machines, built-by-hand pieces were often slightly off; for example, every drawer was its own size, or the joints in the wood were slightly irregular.

If there is carving or an edge on the legs, its really sharpsometimes even under coats of paint. This shows that its not pressed in wood, but cut or carved.

The underside/exposed parts of the furniture look like real wood. Not smooth, like pressboard, but with a definite direction of fibers.

Look as you might, you find no metal fasteners of any sort. No screws or nails. The olderand better-madefurniture is all wood on wood.

When in doubt:

Look for a stamp with a factory name and manufacture date. This is not necessarily bad. A lot of factories in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had these.

If theres a drawer, take the drawer out and examine it. Only completists ever paint the inside of drawers, and only completists on magic mushrooms ever use metallic paint inside those.

So You Got This Piece

And the adventure begins. I do not have time here to tell you how to refinish it or even how to deal with the most common problemslook for those tips at the back of the next Daring Finds Mystery, French-Polished Murderbut for now I will tell you what to do if your piece is merely lusterless and a little scuffed. Put on gloves. Get the finest grade of steel wool, then mix together some turpentine and some mineral oil as best you can (they wont stay mixed). Buff the wood with the steel wool dipped in just a bit of the mixture. (Test in a hidden corner first. If you have one of the new water-soluble varnishes, the turpentine will ruin it.) What this does is melt the lacquer and respread it. The oil is just there to keep the turpentine from evaporating so quickly. Do a little area at a time and wipe with a soft cloth afterward. And work in a well-ventilated area, preferably outside. Turpentine fumes are very bad for you.

If your piece is just a little scuffed and you dont want to fuss with it too much, theres a product sold online (no, I dont get a cut)www.kramerize.comthat will be a little better and faster than the mix I described. Its a proprietary mixture, so I can guess at whats in it, butso farI cant reproduce it. Its your quickest no-fuss, no muss furniture facelift.

Of course, a lot of people dont like to remove the old coats from their antique piece. They figure that paint or varnish is part of the pieces history and should stay with it. If you are one of those purists, just use steel wool to gently rub away any flaking paint. If you have small children in the house, take one of the paint chips to be analyzed for lead paint. If its lead free, feel free to display it in all its multicoated glory.

CHAPTER 1

One Womans Trash

When I was little, I was going to be a ballerina. This was a strange ambition for a five-year-old who could trip over both feet at the same time while standing still. As soon as that tragic fact dawned on me, I settled on the more attainable ambition of becoming a lion tamer. This, at least, seemed perfectly within my reach, because my cat always did exactly what I wanted her towell, except when she balked at jumping through the lighted hoop. Which is just as well, because Mom didnt exactly approve of my setting fire to her quilting frame. With the quilt in it.

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