Time to ask for a bit of help, and an update on our current Heywood Wakefield project...

We've had this piece currently consigned  to our store that has been a major time waster for me and I'm asking for some help! I have spent way too much time trying to identify the designer, and although this looks familiar to me, I cannot find the exact same chair. Jens Rison, Mies Van de Rohe, Adrian Pearsall? Or maybe just some knockoff that was inspired by one or another? The chair has obviously been recovered and whoever did the work removed the original tags if they were there to start with.

I've already had customers loving the chair, although I don't as yet have on our floor for sale. It's still in our shop area and I don't mind customers taking a look! I'm not a big fan of the redo though some apparently are. If someone has a clue to the attribution, I would surely appeciate your input!

Just a quick update on our current Heywood Wakefield dresser refinish. After more than a few hours of grunt work on the sanding portion, we are ready to start putting down the finish coats. Here is how we stand as of this evening:

We are now ready to give our new Encore dresser a new set of clothes! In the grand scheme of H/W refinishing, this has been a relatively simple refinish job. No major construction or staining issues and this piece should turn out perfect! Ready for another 60 plus years of service...

My wife sells the Atomic Ranch magazine at her store and we just got in the new issues and they are up for grabs. They normally sell out and we are planning to move the distibution up to A Modern Line soon. I don't normally promote other peoples stuff, but she is my wife, and if you are into vintage clothing, jewelery, and tons of other collectible stuff, you can find her here http://yesterdazevintage.com/, and she has an Etsy site as well which you can access from her website.

I couldn't help but notice going through the new edtion of Atomic Ranch that in the "Modern Wisdom"  section, they are planning on doing an article on Heywood Wakefield refinishing.

I just had to shoot off a short e-mail to the editor regarding my blog and how long I've had a passion for Heywood Wakefield refinishing. I didn't get my hopes up on expecting a response and so far I haven't. I guess I'm still running under most peoples and/or web radar sites to get noticed. Go figure! If you see my refinishing in person I think you may come away impressed.

As always thanks for takng the time to take a peek!

Back to doing what I do best, some new shop pics and yes. we finally have an informative if not perfect website...

Lately we have been lacking a good representation of bedroom furniture here at A Modern Line and my next chore is to finally finish some pieces that we have accumulated and get back to my Heywood Wakefield centric posts. We've had this H/W dresser in our living room standing on end for so long it had almost become a fixture. I have way too much inventory in storage, which we need to eliminate, but this was the proverbial "bird in hand". I have two of these potential "beauties" to refinish so I needed to get at least one up and running...

M524 Encore dresser and we do have the mirror to match...

In fine stuctural condition with consistent wear for it's years kicking about. Pretty normal for the period and not one of the more dramatic saves, but you get the idea. The usual water rings that have penetrated the finish and some of the finish completely gone...I'm the third owner of this piece as it was a "trade in" for some friends that were looking to me to refinish the exact same dresser in "champagne". Already had one finished and we traded for the cost of refinishing...A case of instant gratification!!

Legs popped of and drawer pulls removed, we are ready to start strippng back to it's birthday clothes!

Got a call the other day from Dave at http://davesmidcenturystuff.blogspot.com  He was interested in sending his wife up for a couple of days to apprentice for some refinishing work as they had acquired a couple of Heywood Wakefield pieces and he thought Wonder Woman may have an interest...I gave him some pointers over the phone and kind of wished him good luck! I would guess looking at what she has tackled before she may be able to pull this off! Maybe he or she will follow along with this project...

I know not all of you following the blog are local, but for those of you who are, here's some new stuff in house...

This is a nice MCM "rocking" chair from the early 60's I would guess...Nice vintage condition.

Fiberglass shade on a really nice quailty bamboo vintage lamp....

Custom painted bowling ball captured in a reto stand....Yes, that's fun...

Lots of great vintage glassware w/carriers? How often do you find these!

On the rocks, please....

and new art arriving daily!!

New art, lighting, furniture and glassware just in... We are turning stuff regularly so stop by and see what's new!!

Last but not least, we have our new website up and running and you can find us right here at:

www.amodernline.com. The site is still in the works, but here's some pics to see what we're all about...

Please feel free to give us some feedback and check in regularly...

As always, thanks for taking a look...

Final pics of the Heritage Henredon table...

Just one quick post!! Well, I finally finished with the Heritage Henredon atomic style table that I've taken way longer than expected to return to my friends. Should be able to return in the morning depending on the weather. If you don't like the weather here just wait an hour or so and it's likely to change!

Underside shot. You just have to love these lines!

Here's the table with my customers chair. Pretty nice match!

Even though over budget for the job, I personally really like the results and it's been a great learning experience! All the missing pieces reunited and it's good to take home....

The custom restain on the base and top turned out better than expected, although it took a bit longer than expected to dry down. This turned out to be a very nice match for the chairs and should be a great fit in my friends home. As per request, the table was shot in polyurethane as this is a daily user and the urethane takes a beating over and above a lacquer finish. As a bonus, the overstain on the base took care of some of the wear and tear issues without too much extra touch up work.

Still slogging along on the new website and hopefully I can preview tomorrow. Wish me luck and pass down that bottle of ibuprofen please!!



Website burnout, Heredon update, and something to light up your life...

My venture into building the new website for the store is coming along, albiet not without a few headaches to go along with the learning curve, so I thought I'd take a brief respite and catch up a lttle...

I already had my domain secured for the last two years through GoDaddy and am working on their "website tonight" version which on the surface looks fairly simple and I guess it could be if you only wanted something very generic. That is probably the "tonight" version. Mine will likely take some more ibuprofen and a couple of more days to accomplish. My current "test pattern" holder will have to do for now...Yes, I am old enough to remember these...

Remember that Heritage Henredon atomic dining table I took on a couple of weeks ago for a friend for refinishing? Well, it's still here and getting close to complete. Here's how we started:

Obviously you can't buy furniture like this anymore and this was supposed to be just a top refinish and I'd hoped to get this done in a few days. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was disappointed that the top turned out a little too reddish and darker than expected and thought I'd have to start from scratch. The base of the table had some pieces that had fallen off over the years and I never even paid any attention to the chairs they had matched with the set. I was so totally awe struck by the lines of the table I never even looked! I asked my friends to drop off the pieces and one of their chairs for some help in matching back the finish to original as the base of the table had been glued to the top at some point and I'd already stripped and stained the top and leaves. The chairs are not original to the set but they are sweet:

Manufactured by US Raval in Virginia. I couldn't find any info on the company but I love the embossed vinyl seats even with the imperfections! And those windsor spindles that run from the top to the bottom support look so great! Really nice lines on these chairs...but the better news for me is that these chairs are a much darker finish than the table and just a bit more reddish in color. And my friends prefer darker finishes as most of what they have is in "darker finishes". Yes, I think this could work! Well, to make a long story even longer I ended up scruffing up the base and over staining to match the already stained top with a custom mixed stain. Sorry, no after pics yet, but hope to have the finished job up early next week and hopefully home to my friends!! I seriously under quoted this project and know I'm going to take a "fiscal" beating, but not only are they friends but great customers as well, and I'm the only one to blame. Another one of those learning curve experiences...

Lamps and lighting seem to be popular posts recently, so I thought I'd give a short share on some new projects.

This is a nice little floor lamp that another friend dropped in my lap. Her son had actually cleaned up most of the rusted parts so a lot of the labor on this poor neglected item was actually done. As opposed to some of my pics, this actually looked worse in person than the pics! Most of the original finish was either gone or still showed rust. I debated tearing the whole thing down to work on. I didn't even know if the damn thing worked so I stuck some bulbs in and it did indeed work, even the switches on the back of the globes and the foot switch on the base! The wiring is definetely vintage, but in good condition. Here's the after pics...

One more little "atomic" lamp project that had been awaiting some TLC.

Nice small desk/nightstand lamp and the shade is likely worth the price of what I'm selling the lamp for...

As always, thanks for following along...

Hope one day soon to get back to my H/W projects...

Keep checking in on my progress on our website at www.amodernline.com

Yeah, I feel another headache coming on....

Up and running and working my tail off to keep up...and oh, yeah about those scoop chairs...

It's been a rather remarkable first week being open. We have had a bunch of long time friends and past customers come through the door and love the new look of the place! It's true we have had some designer types that didn't get the new look, but that's not what we're all about now anyway and maybe they will have some MCM customers that draw them back.

Here's a few pics of the store that I hadn't previously shared:

nice pair of MCM danish style chairs and some new lamps

Eerno Aarnio "gyro/pastille" rocking chair and "59" Heywood Wakefield Constessa six piece storage/bookcase unit. (not all pictured)

Couple of "faces" that have had a little makeover and a super nice vintage two tier atomic lamp...Better in person that the limp pics!

and a few nice laminate blond MCM tables for a very reasonable price for the MCM lover on a budget!

I did a post awhile back on a really nice pair of scoop chairs and ottoman frames that I had acquired that needed some cushions and attention. Well I just got them back today and my upholsterer did them some serious justice:

Not only do they look great, but they are so comfortable. Many thanks to Mr. Modtomic for sending along some pics for reference for our upholstery pros to work with! I'm sure these will find a new home soon either as a pair or individually soon.

The "atomic" Henredon table I've been working on for my friends is in the final stages of completion with a darker finish and hope to have some pics up of the finished piece soon...

If anyone has an interest we had another write up in our local Patch on-line newscast that highlighted us again. You can see it here at: http://seminoleheights.patch.com/articles/meet-the-owner-a-modern-line?track_event=view-follow-up.179976

As always, thanks for taking a look....

Just had to start this refinishing job and some new store pics...

As promised in the last post, here are some pics of my friends Henredon table that they have entrusted to me to bring back up to speed along with a few better shots of our store. First the table:

Now, I'm familiar with the Henredon company having delivered retail furniture for many years and always associated the name to much more traditional furniture albiet the company was usually on the cutting edge of design. The friends I'm doing this partcular project for advised that the original owner had purchased in the late 50"s. Since Heredon, on a search has been in business since 1945 originating in North Carolina, I suppose this may be true, but this style was not something I would have expected from Henredon.

I love the atomic lines of this table! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me and will post some pics of the chairs later although I haven't yet been recruited to work on those. Here's some pics of the redo: Yes, this will take more than one post before I'm done...

This is a large table even with no leaves.inserted. It's 51"inches round and I barely have room to work on it in my limited shop space. It only had one major chip in the veneer on the top and otherwise had normal wear and tear for a piece of it's age. Sometimes you only see the damage done after you atart on a piece as was the case here...

Many of the scratches and gouges were not originally visible without taking off the top  layer of lacquer and stain and some were a bit deep. Fortunately, they were workable as the veneer was really thick and could stand some abuse. If this were a new piece from a retail furniture store today, it would go in a dumpster with no chance of redemption. Here's how we look after the final sand:

After stripping it appeared the veneer was pecan as it had a bit of a pinkish tint. I test stained a bit of one of the table leaves with some Early American stain and thought it looked like a good match so I went ahead and did the whole table last night with the stain. This morning as I looked again, I was disappointed as the finish had too "reddish" a tint to match the original. Back to the drawing board and will have to wait for the stain to dry down to take off.

Hope to get some "after" pics up within a couple of days. My customers/friends have opted for a urethane finish as opposed to a lacquer top coat as this is going to be a piece that gets daily use. It needs to look good, but has to be durable as well.

Couple of quick shots of our new store that's finally up and running and we've had some great feedback so far. People are lovin' the new clean lines and more minimal approach for the MCM look!

These are some shots that are not on our FB page so if you'd like to peruse some other pics feel free to like us there at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/A-Modern-Line/148433368524352?sk=wall   I hope to get  our new website up and running soon along with the myriad of other projects that I have to attend to. If I could clone a fully adult version of myself I think we would still have more to do than I need to get done : ) .....

As go most projects...Longer than expected, but well worth the effort!!

I have to apologize for not posting lately but we have been rather busy trying to get just a couple of things together. I haven't even had time to read other peoples posts much less work on my own lately.

We had really planned on a bit more of a seamless transition from the old Kaleidoscope configuration over to the new "A Modern Line" opening and originally planned on re-opening this last Wednesday. Our previous partner was moving the last of their inventory out over the last weekend and there was just too much to try and accomplish in just a few days, so my wife and decorating guru didn't have too hard of a time reasoning with me that we needed a few down days to put this all together even though the new signage went up on last Saturday...

We still need a few more signs around the building but this one was for our street front and took priority. There is no doubt as to where to find us now!! Many thanks to "Good Guy Signs" www.goodguyssigns.com.  here in our own neighborhood for getting this done so quickly and efficiently! Way ahead of what I originally had anticipated!

Well we postponed opening until today (Sat. 2-4). It was just a soft opening for now with plans for a "grand" opening by the end of the month but it gave us a little breathing room to try and get the place up to speed. Here are a few "less than great" shots before we opened. I'll try and get some better shots up sooner than later...

 I probably should just have waited and taken some better pics and still plan on doing so, but I only have so much time and these will have to do for now. Fortunately everything in the pics looks a lot better in person. Everyone through the store today loved the new stripped down cleaner look of the store that is much more conducive to the MCM look! You may be able to see some better pics that my wife took on our F/B page here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001542113664 

I've got loads of work ahead of me including refinishing a freinds late 50's era Henredon dining table. I will definetely be taking some "before and afters" of this beauty and will likely start on in the next few days! Nice high quality piece with a very atomic look...

Happy to be back in the "blog" saddle again...Let me know if you have any questions about any Heywood Wakefield refinishing issues or MCM in general. Hope to get back to my main love of my current H/W inventory soon...oh, and I hope to get the cushions back for those "scoop" chairs from an earlier post soon...These are going to look so great!!