Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Beautiful Weather + Monday Off = Refinish Baughman Base! Status: So Much Nicer.

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I took the opportunity of a day off and perfect weather to knock the old finish off the Milo Baughman Recliner base today. Of course I couldn't spend all day messing with goofy stuff like furniture refinishing...the Girlfriend and I went and played a couple eighteen holes of mini-golf! We tied!

Before 1

You may remember how the base looked (see above) from our last installment of Baughman

Recliner Fix Up. Last time I had busied myself with replacing batting and the suspension straps.

That worked out nicely and I've been happily napping in my recliner ever since. But I've not been

real happy with the finish on the wood base and knew it wouldn't take long to scrub it down with the

Antique Finish Restorer that I've been using on everything else. Today was the day.

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Here's the "After". After a quick cleanup with Murphy Oil Soap I spent maybe an hour with the

Minwax Antique Finish Restorer and Steel Wool (0000). The arms seemed to have the finish

stripped off already either by general wear or an earlier owners effort to refinish. I was able to even

out the finish by stripping off some of the stain from the legs and more or less re-applying it to the

arms. I'm not entirely sure it works but in the end the entire unit looks much more cohesive than it

did before.

Before 2

Looks so much better than this before pic, huh.

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Mmmmm...look at all that beautiful wood grain! After scrubbing it down with the Minwax and Steel

Wool it got a healthy dose of the Feed-N-Wax. It's a great product. I know...I sound like I got stock in

these companies or I'm getting some sort of kick back but I assure you, I am not. I am totally

revenue free here. I've just found products I like to use and like to pass on my experience with them.

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One of the things I like about using the Minwax finish restorer as apposed to sanding and staining is

that the "Age" and "Character" isn't removed from the piece. See them dings and dents? You won't

get those if you buy a reproduction from Design Within Reach ("within reach"...really?)! Those little

imperfections speak of authenticity to me. Yeah, I want my chair(s) to look good...great even, if I can

manage it...but not "perfect". Plus I don't have to worry about banging up the legs with the vacuum

cleaner!

5 comments:

  1. Looks like we had similar ideas about how to spend our Labor Day weekend! Great job on the chair!

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  2. Where do you get Minwax Antique Finish Restorer? Lowes didn't have it and ordering it off Amazon seems like a pain... any suggestions?

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  3. I can't find it at True Value either. Maybe the other big box Home Depot?

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  4. There is a chair very similar to this in a house we are looking to buy. It needs some TLC, so I believe I will just follow your excellent progress here. Thanks for posting.

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