Restoration of Old Furniture In the process of restoration, a lot can be learnt about the historical character of old furniture..

Above are photos of a Mizuya dansu (kitchen cupboard) made in the late 19th Century, using Hinoki for the framework, Keyaki for the doors and drawers. The original had copper-wire sliding doors on the upper left shelf area. We had modified the doors to Hinoki paneled doors, however,at the request of the purchaser we changed the doors back to wire panels again. Sale price was 160,000 Yen.

The framework damaged by borers

After restoration

The door before modification

After modification

The top left photo shows the condition before the restoration was done. We purchase old Japanese furniture (most pieces are about 80-100 years old) almost every month and they mainly come from the Chubu area of Japan (Aichi, Mie and Shiga Prefectures) where there are still a fair number of these items available. It is not easy for the average person to value or see the potential for old furniture. It requires a lot of experience because in most cases, the furniture is in poor condition and can be quite dirty, making it hard to imagine how it looked when it was brand new.

1. Cleaning. The process of the restoration of old furniture starts with cleaning, naturally. However, this can be the hardest work in the whole process. We have to clean things like; layers of dust often about 1cm thick, aged stains which were too hard to get out, cob webs, dead insects and so on. It takes a lot of work, however, the furniture already looks much better after this process.

2. Repair of the timberwork. In this process, we firstly check for damage by borers and repair any holes made by them with wood putty. Mizuya Dansu or Kitchen cupboards are often severely damaged by borers around the base because they were usually placed on bare ground, which was common flooring for Japanese kitchens back in that period. If the damage is too much to repair, the furniture is broken into pieces and the timber and parts are then used in the restoration of other furniture. After all the holes are filled in, we spray "borer killer" on the whole thing. This has to be done carefully and precisely, otherwise any borers that survive will damage the furniture again.

3. Sanding the surface of the furniture. Next step is the sanding of all the woodwork especially the surface of the furniture. This is also a very important process in reviving the old furniture as this makes a big difference to the look of it after it is re-stained. In sanding the area where damage has been repaired, we have to try not to make it look unnatural or stand out too much. We'd rather do less work to it and sometimes, this even becomes part of the character of the furniture, often giving a better result at the end of the whole restoration work. The idea of restoration for us is to always respect the original features of the furniture, which is, we think, very important. (We also use parts like doorknobs, handles, and nails taken from other furniture, which we were unable to repair, to match the age and the look of the furniture as much as possible.)

4. Re-staining The final step is re-staining and sealing of the furniture. Often, over many years, the original stain and sealer has peeled and faded. The important thing here is how to create the color of the stain as close as possible to the original. All we can do here is just keep trying different mixtures of stain until we get the color we want. Usually old Japanese furniture has a special stain-sealer called "Urushi" or lacquer on its surface; however, we don't necessarily use this all the time. We also use modern oil based stains and sealers if the result will be complementary to the furniture.

What do you think of our work! (The top right photo is the furniture after restoration.) We think we can be proud of our methods which we have developed through years ofexperience. To finish, let us introduce you to our excellent team of furniture restorers, Mr. Masayuki Sone (Supervisor):An all round repairer who can repair almost anything?

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