Charles and Ray Eames dinette set and what appears to be a somwhat rare Broyhill "Facet" suite dresser/credenza...and a few pieces of pretty swell art as well!

I'd prefer to be posting this as a rehab project especially for the Broyhill Premier series nine drawer dresser I recently acquired. As what is increasingly normal, I neglected to get some before pics of said dresser/credenza. I'm always pushing to get a start on new projects and don't always remeber the camera. Duh!

 

My wife stumbled upon a CL posting for this particular piece a week or so ago and as I'm the 'go-to' guy for furniture acquisition she said take a look!

Broyhill Premier series nine drawer dresser from the 'Facet' suite.

 

 

I've rehabilitated loads of the Premier stuff from the Brasilia, Saga, Sculptra, and Emphasis suites but this was my first 'Facet' piece and quite frankly, I could find next to nothing for info on this particular suite. Just a couple of pics and next to no info. It's just as well made (perhaps better) with some great lines. Maybe it was short lived due to production costs? I doubt much was produced hence the lack of information. When I procured this piece, I saw the potential.

 

 

The real potential with this cabinet were with double fold back center doors that hid 3 long drawers. Dressers are great but TV credenzas are a lot hotter property in the store and with the top two of the center drawers and glides removed, it was a simple matter of installing some hardboard and drilling some holes for cord/cable access to create the perfect place to hide your cable, dvd, blu-ray player or game consoles. And, oh yeah, I had to refinish the some what scratch covered top. It wasn't horrible but enough to be a distraction. Some Min-Wax golden oak mixed with some early american made for a dead on match to the original color! I enjoy the challenge of getting the mixes just right especially when I hit it the first go round.

 

 

My piece was missing the original "Facet" label but I managed to find just the one example for reference!

 

 When you are looking for new merchandise it's much more of a serendipitous search rather than looking for someting specific. Seems the harder you seek a particular item, the harder it is too find. Better to let the pieces fall where they will. I always ask customers if they are looking for something in particular and many just answer they are waiting for a piece to find them. Yup!

 

Acquired this Charles & Ray Eames dinette table with 3 avacado vinyl and foam chairs over the fiberglass shell chairs with a 42" chrome stemmed table with cast aluminum bases and cherry edge white formica top table. Yes, all the pieces have original HM labels with a delivery date of Jan. 1970.

Sure there as a few scuffs in the outside welting of the vinyl on the seats and some scuffs on the cherry edging and the aluminum bases show a bit of oxidation although cleaned up. Other than that, these were pretty pristine. No cuts or nick in the vinyl and all the stiching was intact. Sweet!

 

 

 

 

These were found on a CL ad as a 60's/70's table and chairs. No attribution was given in the ad and when my wife brought it to my attention, it certainly did get my attention. They weren't giving this away but I didn't pressure when told they really wanted to get the price they were asking.

 

I'm really lucky to have some great consignors with a real knack for finding some swell pieces of original art! I'd love to have found these myself, but when you offer consignment you can offer a much broader and deeper inventory than I have the time to hunt for.

Here's a few of the latest examples although we have no lack of nice pieces in house:

 

 

 

 

These are all original oils or acrylics and the top piece is a very large impressionist of the Golden Gate Bridge that my photog skills do no justice. Stunning. The second may be a studio piece but has a nice MCM flavor and dating and the last may be an Italian still life and has almost a cubist feel to me. All compliment the store furniture nicely.

 

I'll try and be a bit more diligent going forward about before and process pics on future rehab pieces.

In the meantime, I'd love to hear if you have anymore info on the Broyhill Facet suite.

 

 

 

 

 



Italian chair love! Our Italian manufactured beauties are finally finished!

Just a quick post with some "afters" of our latest project. Well worth the effort! Here's a reminder of how we looked "before".

 

At least these came with their original rubber over steel bands! Our upholstery pros did the new seat cushions some serious justice with new 3 inch high density foam and some nubby oatmeal fabric that I already had on hand.

 

 

 

A few more days and I can get back to projects but right now I'm building out a 1000 sq.ft. space I've acquired for storage and lots more shop space. I'll finally have the room to tackle multiple projects at once with separate sanding and finishing areas. Bring on those refinishing jobs and some organization!

Hope to have more to post soon! 

 



Italian flat pack / KD chairs that I could use some help identifying...

I love following and authoring mid-mod blogs but lately I've been so tied up actually working on projects I've left both kind of by the wayside to catch up a bit.

The good thing about falling behind on blogs I follow is I can always go back and catch up later!

 

When I fail to post anything for a long period of time, followers probably think I've died or fallen off the flat edge of the earth. I'm here to say, I'm still around and asking for a little help identifying some Italian chairs I recently acquired.

 

 

Although the construction is similar to many of the Yugoslavian manufactured danish inspired surfboard arm chairs that seen pretty common, these are actually Italian made. They came to me with all the original seat bands in good condition. The same can't be said for the frames which are in need of a total refinish. They also came sans any cushions that obviously brought the purchase price down a bit.

Still, they are simply gorgeous and I couldn't pass them up!

 

 

Obviously, someone has tried to do a bit of repair work and flipped one of the back support and this will need to be broken apart and addressed along with some other issues but I think these will turn out absolutely drop dead gorgeous when finished.

Any readers out there have any idea who designed these sculptured pieces of furniture of art posing as furniture?

I'll try and be better about following up in this and other projects in the future!

A Modern Line

 



Exactly 4 views short of 40,000 as I write this post! For a person that is so irregular about posting, I feel honored! Thanks! Oh yeah! and another project piece! Sweet little bar rehab!

When I started this blog over two years ago I originally intended to see if there was any interest out there in Heywood-Wakefield refinishing and facilitate some conversation on the subject. I'd throw in some other mid-mod stuff to help fill the page. It started very slowly and it took quite a bit of time to pick up even a few lookers to see what it was about. I was only refinishing as a long term hobby and had a regular job to pay the bills and I started following other like minded mid century modern bloggers. Yes, I was a real rookie at the blog thing. Just something to say and maybe someone might be interested!

By most blog standards I'm really small potatoes as far a views and followers but I'm greatful to all that take the time to take a look. I now own my own successful store here in Tampa and feel I've really found my niche. H/W is not neccesarily my main focus anymore but I still work on vintage pieces on a regular basis for customers that need help and I'm always happy to offer advise to those that want to go the DIY route. Just wanted to give a big thanks to you that love rehabbing anything MCM and for following along!

 

My wife recently picked up a small bar that she "surprised" me with during a recent road trip. She just loves to find me project pieces and although we are moving pieces through the store so quickly, it was still a pretty nice find...

 

 

This particular piece used to have an extention off to the right side that was totally missing. Well the rest looked worth the trouble. It has a drop down bar that originally lighted with the drop down lowered and a very nice art deco fixture with an old fluorescent bulb that no longer worked.

It was obvious that at least the outside of the case had absorbed a bit too much use over the years for just some Howards RAF and needed to be redone. The manufacturer had done a really nice job with the finish but it finally succumbed to the sander. Not quite as easy as expected!

 

 

 

 

 

To keep this story a bit shorter than the time I've spent, I'll just say that as much as I'd have loved to keep the chrome art deco fixture intact, it wasn't really visible from standing in front of the piece unless you were laying on the floor and the bulb was so obscure that even my best sources had never even seen one like it and I'm sure they were outlawed years ago so I had to retrofit with a newer fixture. Thankfully the compression switch still worked and I was able to rewire so it works great!

 

 

The last two lighted pics don't do this justice but shoud have some better pics up on our Facebook page once we get into the store. If you don't already like us on FB take a sec and you can see some of the other things I've had the pleasure to rehab but haven't had the time to post about here.

I'm always happy to help out fellow rehab types with tips and hints on H-W or any mid-mod pieces you'd either like to have restored or would like to do yourself!

A Modern Line

 

 

 

 

 



Herman Miller DCM chair rehab and perhaps some more useful information...

I have been so very far behind in posting or even catching up on posts from others it's almost embarrasing. The good news is that we have been so busy at the store and with rehabbing and refinishing that I haven't had the time!

Second post for the day and a bit of catch up while it's still fresh.

 

Had a customer contact me a week or two ago about an Eames style chair that the back kept falling off from. I was thinking a lounge chair and how could that be? Bring it by and I'll take a look at the problem. Well, he stopped in about 5 days ago and the problem was pretty obvious. Not a lounger but a vintage DCM that someone had attempted to repair probably multiple times without much success.

 

 

The shock mounts had broken loose from the back and seat at some point and it appears someone had tried to use some Gorilla glue to reseat. I would definetely NOT recommend this adhesive as it tends to expand and bubble outside the project area and obviouly not strong enough anyway.

The repair may a mess of the finish and the chair needed a complete rehab. Quoted a price and here we go!

Above you can see what appears to be a date stamp and looking closely you can see DCM embossed into the wood above it. The chair appears to be all original with stainless steel rod legs that need a cleaning but otherwise in good shape and all the original leg ends were intact. I thought the chair would pop more in a different finish but the customer wanted back in the original black. I'm grateful in hindsight as some of the original black was pretty heavily inbedded in the wood and some pretty obvious factory fills. Likely why it hit the black line! Still very structurally sound.

 

 

Lots of scrapping off the old glue and the first sand. I could actually see the original symmetrical clamp marks from the bending process which I pretty much, though not totally eliminated during the final sanding.

 

 

 

                                     

 

After cleaning up the rubber shocks it was apparent that there was no way to attach the shocks back to the back in their proper place unless they were already mounted to the frame. I didn't want to put a finish between the shocks and the frame that would break loose, so these had to be glued into place on the bare wood. Necessity is the mother of invention it is said and and I'm a believer. I'm always having to come up with creative solutions to resolve different problems!

 

 

I decided on a two part epoxy glue made by Lock-tite that was supposed to be good for 3200 lbs. Messy stuff to work with but it turned out to be a good choice. Twenty four hours after my impromtu clamp job and everything seemed to be holding nicely. Time to start on the refinish!

 

 

The glue job turned out better than expected and the squeeze out under the shocks sanded off pretty easily. Taped out the shocks and the date stamp (I always try and retain original factory marks). I told my customer that I would try and replicate the wood grains showing as best I could to match the original. I have to admit, I was outside my comfort level at this point and was crossing my fingers that I could actually pull this off!

One coat of black satin lacquer left just the right amount of grain showing through and I top coated with two coats of semi-gloss clear with a final coat of satin clear to knock down the glossyness just a tad and here's the finished product with a good 0000 steelwool and lacquer thinner cleaning on the frame before installing the seat and back.

 

 

Yes, I did under quote this particular project for the time and materials but I absolutely love the way it turned out! Although my customer was hurried he seemd to love the end result and a good reference for future work and I've learned along the way. Hard to put a price on that!

 

Next up another learning curve with how to remove finish from the "new" Heywood-Wakefield furniture!