Adventures in Craigslisting (Chapter 2)

CasaSugar — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:46:38 -0800

If you've read my first Adventures in Craigslisting post, you'll know that I found a beautiful and cheap German antique coffee table on Craigslist. The table was owned by Chris Howard, who specialized in restoring antique and modern furniture. Chris agreed to strip the table for me after he found out that I wanted to refinish it. He emailed me the next day to tell me how the stripping process had gone on the table.

To find out how gross and horrible the stripping process was, just read more.
Chris wrote,

I stripped the coffee table yesterday. This is one of those projects an amateur would do and vow never to strip finishes again. I thought the finish was a light coat of lacquer, wrong. It's about 10 coats of shellac, and shellac gets real nasty when removing. Good news... the wood looks like solid "genuine" mahogany, and has nice aged (deep red) color. when refinishing, light sanding of the mahogany, medium sanding on the light sections . . . natural stain (or selective staining if you don't want a modern style with high contrast), and oil should do the trick.

Wow-I'm glad that this is a project I didn't have to tackle! Check out all of the nasty stripping pictures below.

View 9 Photos ›

Adventures in Craigslisting (Chapter 1)

CasaSugar — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:00:46 -0800

One of the great things about buying or selling items on Craigslist is that sometimes your run into some remarkable furniture and some remarkable people. (You also sometimes run into oddballs, but I welcome the occasional oddball as well.)

Take my latest Craigslist find, for example. I found an antique German coffee table advertised on Craigslist for the low, low price of $40. I loved its curved edges and end pieces that could be folded down or propped up. The delicate scrollwork on the interior edge, contrasting with the more modern, clean lines of the rest of the table, seemed to me to act as a bridge between antiquated formality and midcentury sparseness.

To find out more about this Craigslist adventure, just read more.

When I went to look at the table, it turned out that it was owned by Chris Howard, a professional furniture restorer and all-around nice guy. When Chris heard about my plans to restore the table, he suggested that I leave the stripping to him and that I could then stain and seal the table myself. I readily agreed, since stripping furniture isn't necessarily my idea of a good time.

To hear about how the stripping process went, tune in tomorrow for the next chapter of Adventures in Craigslisting!

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