White Paint Removed… from a quarter-sawn Oak Buffet…
Last month I wrote the post “White Paint on Antique Furniture”. It seems that every piece of furniture that I restore has specks of white paint on it… the little white splatters from careless house painting.
This is an update on the buffet that I pictured in that post. Here is the before picture again.
the before view of the paint speckled leg...
Here is a picture of the same leg after the piece was restored.
restored buffet leg
This buffet is an amazing piece of furniture. It was made in the late 1800′s to the early 1900′s in a revival of the Empire Style. The Empire Style is primarily straight lined with the addition of scrolled or double curved backets, supports, or legs.
This late period Empire Style furniture was most often made out of oak and oak veneers. The unique thing about this Buffet is that it was made out of SOLID quarter-sawn oak.
Quarter-sawn oak is cut perpendicularly to the trees’ growth rings. This cutting technique results in a lot of waste and the resulting wood is more expensive. Most quarter-sawn oak furniture is therefore made out of some solid and some veneered oak. Oak has visible medullary rays that are exposed when the wood is quarter-sawn. When you look at the picture of the restored Buffet top you can see why quarter-sawn oak is also known as tiger oak.
Empire Buffet as found... before restoration
The corner of the top after restoration:
restored buffet top...
This is the most outstanding quarter-sawn oak buffet that we have ever had at Shady Lawn Antiques. I hope that you have the opportunity to see it.
The buffet after restoration...
