TEDCO Refinishing

Teddy has really gotten into the furniture refinishing business big time. She has been haunting all of the thrift stores down here looking for quality furniture that just needs some TLC and this is what she has come up with. If this keeps up we are going to have to get another trailer to pull behind our Cardinal. Seriously though she has come up with some real bargains and has learned a lot in the brief time that she has been refinishing them.

They will go perfectly in the farmhouse when we get back.

Meanwhile back at the farm our contractor has informed us that he is finished with the drywalling. We are excited to see it.

It all started when she found this 48" round oak table at a thrift shop in Pahrump. (see previous blog entry on Thursday, November 18, 2010)

On Dec. 1 we left Pahrump and relocated here in Lake Havasu City. Shortly after arriving she continued refinishing the 48" table. Here, after staining she applies the first of three coats of poly.

After the final coat of polyurethane varnish was dry we wrapped it securely in bubble wrap for it's trip back to "The Farm" in Michigan.
We will use it for our dining room table.

Teddy had enjoyed her refinishing project so much that after a couple of weeks she began searching the thrift shops here for well built furniture items that were also in need of some TLC.

She bought this solid Maple Captains Chair for $5.00 and was soon hard at work This is the result after stripping, sanding, staining and varnishing with 3 coats of poly. It will go into a corner of the dining room back at "The Farm".

I thought that she was done but once the fever had struck
there was no stopping it.

She got this small 24" round table for $15.00 at another thrift store. It is made of solid Oak but someone had finished it with a mahogany almost black stain so dark that you could barely see the grain. Stripping it revealed this beautiful oak grain that was a shame to hide.

Here it is after 3 coats of poly and hand rubbing.

By now Teddy was becoming somewhat of a celebrity here in the park and folks were stopping by to see what she was working on now.

Soon after finishing the 24" table she came

back with this console table which she

picked up for $30.00. It is 16" wide by

49" long and will go nicely against one

of the walls in the dining room.

(that's the pedestal for the 48" table and a wine rack sitting under it in the back of our trailer where it will ride during the trip back)

And now she's working on this solid maple end table which she picked up for $15.00 Here it is after stripping, sanding and applying the first coat of poly.

She plans to use it as a night table in the bedroom.

Teddy has learned a lot since she started, picking up hints from
woodworkers here in the park and by trial and error.

I must say that I am quite proud of her.

Even so she has to stop or we will have to make two trips
to get all of this back to Michigan.  

Teddy’s Table

Last week Teddy and her friend Eva Syberden spent an afternoon visiting local used book and thrift stores. She came back all excited about a round antique DR table that she had spotted at a thrift store. She thought that it would be a perfect fit for the dining room back at “The Farm” in Michigan. She wanted me to go and look at it to access the quality of the table and to determine the feasibility of transporting it back to Michigan.

So the next morning we drove over there to look at the table.

It was a solid oak 48 inch round table. It was on a hexagon pedestal with solid oak hand carved claw feet. It was a leafed table, however the leaf(s) was/were missing. It was marked at $60.00 which I thought was a real good buy. I figured that I could make an expansion leaf or leaves and decided that transportation would be no problem as we could store the top in the trailer and the pedestal and legs in the basement cargo bins.

But…there’s always a but…when I attempted to open the table to determine how much it would expand, it would not open. There was no visible locking mechanism but it would open approximately one inch and solidly stop. Thrift store personnel could do no better than I, so declaring that the table was hopelessly defective we offered them $20.00 and they accepted.

Upon getting the table back here at the park my friend Hank Syberden and I determined that the previous owner had inserted two drywall screws into the expansion slides, apparently to lock it closed as there was no expansion leaf anyway. We removed the screws and it works beautifully.

Teddy could not wait to get started and before day’s end made a trip to the local Ace Hardware and loaded up on refinishing supplies, zip strip, sandpaper, steel wool, scrapers, etc.

She has been hard at it ever since and is making good progress as the following photos will attest.

Pedestal stripped & sanded ready for staining.

Claw foot legs stripped & sanded.

Strippin the sides

...and the top.

I expect that after she is done we will be able to take it to the “Antiques Road Show” where we will be told, “If I had this in my shop, it would definitely be worth $(put your guess here)”.

;-))