Wednesday, May 23, 2007

My latest rescue


One of my hobbies is restoring antiques. Specifically, finding "junk" of historical significance on the side of the road, taking it home, giving it a little TLC and making it part of our home decor. L.A. is the perfect place for this hobby. There's just enough history here to supply plenty of poorly-cared-for furniture, which just shows up on the street on garbage-day when someone decides to buy something new. Luckily for me (and L.A.'s landfill--i.e. the ocean), I'm a sucker for free stuff. Here's an old oak desk I'm working on. From the looks of it, it's from the 1940's.
The desk was in pieces when I found it. All the wood was lightly water damaged, but nothing my vibrating palm sander couldn't fix. The original top was a fir board, with a thin layer of masonite veneered to the top. Back in the day, this was probably considered a good look, but since I'm the one who rescued it from going to the dump, I feel like I can take the liberty of retrofitting it with a solid oak top. After I'm finished gluing the oak planks, I'll use my router to curve the edges, and urethane the whole thing. More pics to come!

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