Restore old furniture with your own hands. Furniture restoration: giving new life to old objects. Painting - choosing paint and preparing the surface

WANT.ua will tell you how to update furniture with your own hands, without contacting specialized firms that fight a lot of money for their work. Yes, and now in vogue!

HOW TO REPAIR FURNITURE WITH YOUR OWN HANDS

The first step is to decide on the paint. Furniture made of inexpensive material can be coated with any paint. To obtain gloss, enamel varnish paint is used, for matte - oil paint. Water-based acrylic paint is ideal. Aerosol cans have also worked well for painting furniture at home - the paint lays down evenly and without drips.

For coloring garden furniture the use of paints and varnishes is recommended. Metal furniture better to paint paints and varnishes with anti-corrosion effect, and aluminum products - with a special paint for aluminum. In order not to be mistaken for sure, it is better to consult with specialists in the store.

Furniture can be painted with a wide variety of brushes, spray guns and rollers. Be sure to wash and degrease furniture before painting. Inspect it carefully for minor damage. Repair and replace locks, handles, legs, hinges if necessary. Remove any remaining pieces of paint or varnish. Sand the furniture surface with fine-grained emery paper ( Sander will do the job just fine too).

Before painting, cover the furniture with a primer, and then use a putty to repair problem areas. Wait for the primer to dry and degrease the furniture surface with vodka or alcohol. Apply an acrylic primer - it does a good job of soaking cracks, scratches and minor damage. Wait until it is completely dry. Use a spatula to cover the defects of the furniture. Sand the dried putty, remove dust from the surface and prime the furniture.

Prepared furniture can be painted. Painting is carried out in one direction, it is optimal to put several layers of paint (ideally - 2). To make it easier to paint in multiple colors, use masking tape, highlighting the borders. Let the painted furniture dry and use it after a week at the earliest.

If you want to repaint your chipboard furniture, follow exactly the same instructions.

HOW TO PAINT FURNITURE IN HOME CONDITIONS

Furniture varnishing should be carried out exclusively in rooms with good ventilation and without access to open fire. Remove old paintwork completely without leaving even small areas. Cracks, depressions, bulges and other irregularities that appear on the furniture should be putty and sanded.

Prime the surface with a primer before applying the varnish. The varnish is applied in a thin layer, allowing the previous layer to dry before applying the next one. The varnish can be applied both by brush and in the form of a spray, speeding up the processing process. It is recommended first to practice on an unnecessary sheet of plywood or wooden board... Before applying the varnish in a can, shake it well.

Spray the varnish at a distance of 25-30 cm from the furniture to be treated with wide strokes in a horizontal direction. If drips appear, increase the distance between the balloon and the furniture. The varnish dries in about 48 hours, unless otherwise indicated on the label. Sand the first layer of varnish with fine sandpaper, remove the dust with a damp cloth. Apply a second coat of varnish and let it dry completely. Apply a third coat if necessary. If you need to paint lacquered furniture white, use acrylic paint and apply it in several layers after the varnish has dried.

HOW TO RESTORE FURNITURE WITH YOUR OWN HANDS

Anyone can update furniture, just turn on your imagination and find objects that have ceased to impress you with their appearance. So the old chest of drawers that you wanted to write off to the country with one breeze of your hand and bright paint can turn into a stylish dressing table.

Remember to replace drawer handles and legs as needed. Attach a mirror to the dresser and your dresser will be converted into puderes.

In addition to staining, old chests of drawers can be pasted over with colored film and highlighted with moldings (decorative detail for decorating various surfaces).

A shabby writing desk can be a highlight in your home. It is enough to choose the main color for it and, using masking tape and bright colors, create an unusual pattern on it that stands out from the overall design. Put a mirror on top, and bright pictures and photographs under it - and here's another designer thing for you.

With the help of skillful hands, an old cabinet can easily be converted into a serving table. Don't be afraid to play with contrasting colors, stencils, and spray paints. Involve children in the restoration of furniture.

Old wooden chairs are beautifully restored with paints and varnishes. The upholstery of the seats can be changed to soft ones by pre-sewing the seat on a sewing machine. Do not limit yourself to boring material - bright and unusual drawings will come in handy. You can sew a funny cover on the back of the chair.

A shabby stool will look bright and fresh when painted in contracted shades.

You can make a small cozy sofa from an old bed, covered with pleasant fabric and complemented by cute pillows. To update an old kitchen set or wardrobe, cover them with self-adhesive tape of the texture, material and color you like. In this case, the frame can be pasted over in one color, and the boxes in another.

An old Soviet-era baby bed can be easily retrained into a shoe rack, a bookcase for various little things, or a children's writing table. It is enough to repaint it and swap the walls a little.

You can make a mini-bar out of an old piano, which will hold a supply of your alcohol. All you need to do is get rid of the contents of the piano, paint it well or paint it with the desired color. Also you can make a first-class bookshelf, which no one of the acquaintances will have.

Your main weapons when renovating old furniture are fantasy, paints, varnishes, fabrics, stickers and the internet. In the latter, you can find everything your heart desires and, with skillful use of your hands, turn the usual wooden chair in a pretty curbstone.

Each piece of old furniture was made individually, which makes it unique. Mostly antique items are works of art made from expensive wood and have served for several generations. But only a few objects survived to this day, most of them were destroyed by people and time. Such a process as independent restoration of antique furniture allows them to be restored and returned to our everyday life.

It is important to have certain knowledge and skills to carry out restoration work, while it is necessary:

be able to work with wood;
know how to work with fabrics;
use a glass cutter correctly;
have the skills of forging, working with metal.

If you do not have such skills, then you should not immediately start restoring antique furniture, it is better to practice with inexpensive pieces, otherwise you can spoil the surface of old structures, after which the repair will become impossible.

For such work, you will need tools:

drill with wood drills of different diameters;
chisels 4-40 mm wide;
plane;
mallet;
a set of clamps;
hammer with a round butt.
a set of various screwdrivers;
electric and manual jigsaw;
hacksaw for metal;
square;
pliers;
furniture stapler;
bastard file;
polish (a piece of leather, cloth or felt);
artistic brushes of various shapes.

Instruments

Preparatory work

Furniture must be kept in the room where it will be restored for 3-4 days. On the second day, all the boxes must be removed from it and folded aside. In the room, you need to maintain a constant temperature of 18-24 degrees, the humidity should not exceed 75%.

It is necessary to find out in what conditions the furniture used to be. If it was in a damp room, then it will have to be kept at room temperature for 30 days, it is impossible to repair such items earlier, otherwise the shrinkage of the material will cause the destruction of the wood structure.

Disassembly

Furniture is carefully disassembled into separate parts, this is necessary for disinfection if it is damaged by insects and fungal bacteria, and to recreate the previous finish. First of all, furniture elements that are not rigidly connected to the frame are separated - they remove overhead metal decorations, locks, handles, doors, remove shelves, drawers. In cabinets fastened with wedge ties, the rear wall, side parts, cornice are disconnected, after which all decorative elements are removed.

It is not necessary to disassemble cabinet furniture, if there is no great need for this, when assembling the product after the repair is completed, the object may be bent and warped.

Sofas, armchairs, chairs, most often have weak spike joints, often they are completely destroyed, for this reason, the structure is divided into individual elements, separating in advance the soft parts and everything that interferes with disassembly. Furniture assemblies with strong connections are not disassembled.

Large pieces of furniture and complex joints are taken apart on the floor, small parts, knots - on a workbench, where soft bedding is laid out. In no case should you forcefully separate any nodes, you must make sure that there are no parts holding them together. Maybe you didn't notice the screws or nails, or there is glue left, you can remove it if you drip a little alcohol into the seam and after a minute try to separate the joint again. If it fails, you need to treat the glue line with alcohol again.

Upholstered furniture can be very valuable, especially with original wallpaper nails. For this reason, it is necessary to dismantle it in the first place and very carefully.

The old upholstered furniture should be dismantled very carefully.

Connections on threads and nails

When disassembling the threaded connections of furniture, it is important not to focus on the wood. If the screw twists or the screwdriver tries to slip, see if you can grab his body with pliers or platypuses. If it sits firmly in the tree, you need to drop the spindle oil 2 times, wait 0.5-1 hour and try to turn it out again.

If a bent nail is found, the back of the joint should be inspected. Try to pry it with a flat screwdriver, align with pliers, hit with a hammer so that its head comes out of the wood a little. Then carefully pull it out with pliers, the nail puller cannot be used, it will remember the original tree. It is necessary to remove the wallpaper nails by grasping the rod, otherwise its decorative cap may come off. A heavily hammered nail needs to be swung or pulled on the parts connected by it so that the cap comes off. If it starts to sink into the wood, the repair should be stopped! You will have to carefully drill it out, separate the parts, and then remove the nail rod.

To pull out a bent nail, it must first be straightened

Work should be done very carefully.

Adhesive joints

All carpentry adhesives that were previously used in the manufacture of furniture can be dissolved with alcohol. To separate the compound into glue, drip alcohol along the contour of the part with an interval of 2-3 cm, and then wrap it with parchment paper or film. Soak it for 10-30 minutes, after which you need to try to separate the part, if it does not work out, you should repeat the procedure. It is necessary to carefully separate the wooden decor - small elements dry out a lot. It is convenient to separate the joints with glue with a clerical knife, with excessive pressure it will simply break off a segment, and the wood will remain intact, the thin blade fits well into almost any gap.

Hidden connections of parts on wooden bosses can be regular, glued or wedged. It is not difficult to disassemble the usual, the adhesive connection on the bosses is disassembled with alcohol, dripped onto the parts and carefully separated. If the connection is wedged, then you will need to saw it with a knife or jigsaw.

If decorative elements are glued to the furniture, they can be removed with alcohol.

Cleaning

Dust and cobwebs are easiest to remove with a vacuum cleaner, small residues are removed with a soft brush. Old upholstery after dry cleaning can serve for a long time (if it has not rotted), new fabrics for furniture are expensive. The material on old furniture can be very expensive - with tapestry or hand embroidery, and so on.

The interior cavities of furniture and doors are cleaned with a swab with dishwashing detergent. Old dirt will not be cleaned immediately, for this reason, the detergent does not need to be washed off quickly, you need to wait up to 5-20 minutes and carry out this procedure again.

After that, a final inspection of the surface is carried out. It will be strange if the surfaces of the furniture, after removing small flaws(cracks, chips and stains) do not have to be varnished and polished - old technologies were designed for a long service life. This will reduce labor, lower repair costs, and add value to the product at the same time. But in the future, this will have to be taken into account so as not to damage the original coating of the product. If the furniture has not been varnished and the wood looks dirty after thorough cleaning, wax it like oak with beer wax.

If necessary, you can grind the surface of the furniture

The old coating is peeled off

Restoration methods

Antique furniture is restored in different ways, the main goal of this work is to eliminate damage that has appeared during operation, restore its original appearance and preserve it.

There is a museum and commercial restoration, in the first case the most important thing is to preserve the current state of the object for a long time, in the second - the main thing is to restore its functionality. With the museum method of restoring furniture with your own hands, the most important thing is to preserve the product, intervention in its structure is performed only in extreme cases.

To strengthen and decontaminate wood, restorers traditionally use natural resins - mastic, shellac, rosin - they are diluted with organic solvents, after which the wood is impregnated. As a result, the material can resist pests, gains strength.

The holes made by insects are covered with putty, which is obtained by mixing 0.2 parts of gypsum, 1 part of rosin, 2 parts of beeswax with the addition of the required dose of a color suitable for the shade of pigment. The putty is diluted in turpentine or melted, after which the defects are carefully repaired and the excess is removed after drying. Not all antiques are in serious need of restoration. Most often, it is only necessary to eliminate small defects or fit the furniture into a new interior.

A special putty will help to defeat pests.

Partial item upgrades

Restoration of old furniture often consists of repairing a damaged part, for example, if the varnish has worn out. It is necessary to remove the layer of the old varnish, first you need to degrease the surface, then remove the varnish with a metal sponge. Then wipe the items well with a rag and varnish again.

Removing old varnish

Varnishing

Film restoration

This is the simplest method that is used when there is not enough time for painstaking work. The scheme here consists of only three steps:

remove paint or varnish from the surface;
remove fat from it;
stick on the pre-purchased film.

Film restoration

Lamination is a common method of restoring antique furniture. It consists in removing the worn coating and applying a new varnish. Furniture is disassembled into separate elements, contaminated paint and varnish are removed. After that, the broken parts of the structure are replaced, chips and scratches are repaired. If the furniture elements have significant damage, then they must be additionally reinforced, and only then can the product be assembled. At the end of the assembly, the furniture is varnished.

Dyeing

If the product has handles, overheads and so on, they must be removed in advance. Shelves and drawers are removed from the cabinet, mirrors and handles are removed, after which it is installed on bars to raise the bottom of the product. The surface is cleaned, dust is removed and treated with turpentine, after which the cabinet is primed with an oil composition. After drying, the surface is treated with sandpaper and wiped with a cloth with turpentine. Before application, the paint is diluted to a liquid consistency, so it will better cover the surface.

Wood defects

The bulk of the discovered material shortcomings can be easily eliminated:

small cracks are filled with colored wax;
potholes and chips are sealed with liquid wood;
traces of insect activity and rot are cleaned with a chisel, impregnated with biocide compounds and masked with liquid wood.

Steaming wood is necessary to warm up the material and make it softer, in this case grout can penetrate into its structure. Hopefully, after steaming, small cracks will converge and become invisible. For steaming, it is best to use a household steam generator.

You can use a kettle with a tight-fitting lid for steaming. Pour some water, put a heat-resistant hose on the spout. After steam treatment, this piece of furniture is dried with a hairdryer and the heated wood is immediately rubbed with wax.

Liquid tree

Scratches can be removed with colored wax

Assembly

Assembling the refurbished furniture will not be difficult, especially if you have photographed all the parts in their original form before starting work. There are only a few guidelines:

keep the old furniture fasteners intact;
use black self-tapping screws instead of screws, they are better held in wood without the use of glue;
do not worry if furniture with new upholstery folds or unfolds tightly, after a short time the parts will wear in.

Frequent mistakes

There are a number of mistakes that are most often made when restoring furniture with your own hands:

the most important commandment is not to harm furniture and make your work as invisible as possible;
try to replace fewer pieces of furniture, if this is not possible, then make duplicates from the material of the same quality;
if you need to renew the veneer covering, try removing the veneer from inconspicuous areas of the furniture being restored;
if we restore upholstered furniture, then you need to try to keep the original coating on the product.

Before starting work, it is advisable to watch a master class on how to restore various pieces of furniture.

Like any other material, wood has a certain lifespan. But is it worth it to immediately get rid of old furniture that has lost its attractive appearance or worn out? After all, if you approach the matter wisely, in most cases it can be restored, giving a "second life". What is the restoration of the old wooden furniture? Basically, if you look at the articles on this topic, in which the emphasis is on "do it yourself", it all comes down to a simplified understanding of the meaning of the activities. It turns out that it is advisable to deal with it when it comes to old and expensive (antique) products. And it seems like it's not worth "reanimating" various "crafts" from chipboard and the like - a waste of time.

As far as fair, at your discretion, reader. But the author has no doubt that in any home there is something "cheap" (for example, a simple high chair), which you don't want to part with, especially if it was done by hand - after all, memory. The following are the main (simple) types of work on the restoration of furniture items and the technologies implemented, and it is not difficult to decide what exactly is suitable in this or that case. Following this simple recommendations, you will get great looking furniture.

To correctly choose the optimal technique for restoring furniture and necessary materials, it is worth figuring out what can be restored.

Frame (base).
The exterior of the furniture (that is, the finish of the exterior surfaces).
Gilding.
Carving.
Fittings.
Soft "areas" (eg chair seats, sofa upholstery).
Various coatings (varnish, veneer, paint).

Perhaps at some stages you will have to resort to the services of a professional (at least in terms of consultation), but nevertheless, the “lion's” part of the work, with a skillful approach, can be done with your own hands.

Restoration is a complex of measures, consisting of separate stages... Depending on the type of furniture, the degree of its deterioration, the nature of the damage, some of the points can be skipped, but it is simply necessary to list those with which to start.

Photography. This is practiced mainly by professionals, but even in everyday life, if we are talking about a complex structure, it is advisable to fix its original appearance.
Dismantling. Any restoration must be combined with the repair. This is what many do not think about, believing that it is enough to just update the "facade" of the furniture, and the work is done. But what is the point of doing, for example, lamination, if the whole structure is "shaking". In addition, disassembly allows you to reveal hidden defects in furniture. Only those components that are securely fastened are not subject to it.

The main types of restoration work - master class

Painting with paints

The simplest technique, and is applied to inexpensive wooden furniture to hide defects and give it an original look.

Operating procedure:

Removal of dirt and foreign particles. For this, the piece of furniture is washed with a low concentration soda solution.
Drying.
Base alignment. Before further processing the wood, it must be sanded and sanded.
Degreasing. This is necessary so that the applied compositions "adhere" to the material more firmly.
Wood priming. This solves two problems - the surface layer is strengthened and the absorption of paint is reduced, and hence its consumption. Depending on the design features of the furniture, the soil is laid with a swab, roller, on hard-to-reach areas - with a spray.
Application of the primary paint coat.
Drying furniture.
Once the paint has hardened, drawings can be applied.

For painting wood, it is better to choose acrylic compounds.

Decoupage

Simply put - pasting over wooden furniture with various applications (pictures, figures, patterns). It is advisable to use this technology when the defect is only in a separate area, and it is required to mask it in an original way, without additional costs. But if the furniture is worn out in order, you can paste over everything.

Operating procedure:

Wood preparation (indicated above) depending on the degree of damage.
Application gluing.
Coating with varnish.

There are special kits on sale. If you plan to paste over a significant area, then you do not need to cut a large number of patterns (figures), and purchase a ready-made set.

Veneering

The point is to fix the thinnest layer of wood on the surface of the furniture. There is veneer on sale, and it will not be difficult to cut the desired fragment from the sheet with your own hands. This technique makes it possible to give the cheapest, worn-out furniture an exquisite (newfangled) or antique look. Depending on the purpose of its restoration, the appropriate veneer is selected. In fact, this is an imitation of newer or more expensive designs.

There are several veneering techniques. But in everyday life, with your own hands, the easiest way is to implement the following furniture restoration technique.

Operating procedure:

Preparation of wood and veneer fragments.
On the surfaces to be bonded, a thin layer of glue is applied (optimally - PVA).
After a few minutes required for its slight "setting" (depending on the thickness of the layer and the temperature in the room), the veneer is applied to the furniture.
Above is white paper.
After that, the veneer is ironed with a hot iron. This ensures a uniform distribution of the adhesive over the base and a better “adhesion” to the veneer.

If the surface is oversized, it is advisable to additionally "walk" along it (after high-quality heating) with a wooden lath, which is pressed as much as possible. This careful treatment will avoid the appearance of wrinkles or bubbles.

Craquelure

The essence of the technique is in the artificial "aging" of wooden furniture. This technology is the simplest of all used (giving wood relief, multi-layer painting, firing, and a number of others). It's easy to make craquelure with your own hands.

Operating procedure:

The first method is to apply a special (craquelure) varnish to painted, not completely dry wood. As a result - the formation of a cobweb of cracks. Their size and depth depend on the amount of varnish and the consistency of the paint (degree of hardening).
The second method is the use of compositions of different colors. That is, after some "drying" of the main paint, another paint is applied to the wood, contrasting with the first one.

This technique is unpredictable in its result. Before using it for furniture, it is worth practicing on wooden blanks. A little practice will help you understand how the primary layer should "grab" and in what quantity, on which areas to apply the composition for craquelure.

Lamination

For this, vinyl films are used, which are sold in any furniture store. They imitate different breeds wood (in color, structure), and it's easy to find a good option.

But this method of restoration has a limitation - it is realized only on flat areas of furniture. Where there are elevation differences, various bends, it is quite difficult to do lamination with your own hands. It will take care, accuracy and time.

How to apply the film is indicated in the attached instructions.

Varnish treatment

For wooden furniture, this is one of the most common techniques. In fact, it is a classic of restoration.

Operating procedure:

Removing the old coating.
Inspection of the surface and determination of the degree of its damage. If there are defects, then there are several methods to eliminate them - bleaching (if affected by fungus or rot), brushing, puttying, and so on.
Base leveling and sanding.
To remove the remaining dust, the wood is wiped with a damp cloth. Sometimes foreign fractions, when it comes to large areas (for example, cabinet doors), are washed off with water.
Drying of wood.
Stain application. The expediency of this and the procedure (how many layers, the composition is colorless or with a tint) is determined individually.
Furniture varnishing.

There are toning varnishes on sale. It will be much easier to work with them, and, importantly, faster.

There are many other techniques used to restore furniture. Anyone who seriously decided to master this business should study all the articles available on the Internet. For example, about brushing. This is a rather voluminous topic, and only a superficial story about the essence of the technology will be of little use to the reader. But in most cases, for the restoration of wooden furniture, especially only with your own hands, the methods discussed above are sufficient.

What to consider

When restoring furniture with your own hands, it is advisable to combine several techniques. For example, apply a drawing only in a certain area, and treat all other surfaces with varnish. The combinations can be very different; the main thing is that the drugs used are "combined" with each other.
Artistic painting of furniture is not a simple matter. Not all of us are "friends" with a brush. Therefore, if such a restoration technique is chosen, it is better to purchase (or make with your own hands) the appropriate stencils. They are inexpensive, but they will greatly help in the decoration of the piece of furniture. It is enough only on a certain segment to apply a template and apply paint from a spray can (sold in any auto / goods store in a large assortment).

Stains left on wood (for example, on a countertop) with a hot object can be removed well with mastic, which is used for polishing cars. With a soft swab moistened with this composition, it is enough to wipe the defective area, and the old varnish coating will be removed. The area can then be treated with a wax-based preparation. Top up, if necessary, apply a new varnish.

Bulges on veneered furniture are removed without restoration. It is necessary to pierce the formed "bubble" and squeeze out the accumulated air. After that, introduce a small "dose" of PVA glue under the veneer layer (using a syringe) and press down with a load. It dries quite quickly, and this technology will not take much time.

When choosing a colorless varnish for wood, it is necessary to take into account that polyurethane compounds gradually turn yellow. When choosing a tool for the restoration of furniture, it is advisable to focus on preparations based on cellulose or acrylic.

Often scratches appear on the wood. Naturally, we are not talking about any kind of furniture restoration in the full sense in such situations. Such defects can be removed relatively easily.

Small scratches. Here, only retouching is enough. This can be done with a marker of the appropriate color.
The scratches are deep. Such defects are eliminated with furniture wax or mastic. They are heated up and loaded into the crack. Sometimes it is enough just to rub the preparation thoroughly into the wood. Depending on the degree of its damage, it is not difficult to choose the appropriate technique.

Various chips, places of fiber detachment are well masked with a brown marker or iodine. The latter is even preferable, since when diluted with water, you can choose a shade more accurately. Above - colorless varnish.

If the damage to the wood is significant, then it is easier to restore the site with your own hands with the help of putty. On sale there are compositions for wood different shades... But it’s not a fact that it’s possible to choose the most suitable one from memory. Therefore, it is more advisable to purchase a light preparation, and at home, adding paint to it, experimentally achieve the desired result. After hardening, all that remains is to sand and apply furniture varnish.

Any furniture for the home, like everything else, is capable of undergoing wear and tear, deterioration of its original appearance and even collapse. In order to maintain its functionality and attractive appearance, constant care is required, and in other cases, timely repairs. Quality restored furniture can always be found in various museums and exhibitions.

This once again confirms that such furniture can be repaired, and it will look like new. Of course, if the furniture is severely damaged, then special equipment will be required for restoration.

But in some cases, the restoration of furniture with your own hands is also possible.

Surely, each of us will always have some kind of furniture that has long outlived its due date, but it's a pity to throw it away. But, if you use the old headset for a long time, then you can make a very effective decorative object that will stand out for its originality and exclusivity.

Furniture restoration tools

In order to lead with your own hands old furniture in order, special tools are required.

You should be aware that the restorer needs not only ordinary carpentry tools, but also turning, locksmith and drilling devices. An experienced restorer, always has a convenient workshop, where all the necessary conditions for repairs are created.

Also, don't forget about measuring tools. It can be a tape measure, a carpenter's meter, a compass, an inside gauge, a thickness gauge, as well as metal and wooden squares.

For high-quality restoration of any wooden surfaces, you need to purchase a special abrasive wheel. It will be necessary for processing and sanding surfaces.

Thanks to this tool, you can effectively remove paint and varnish and smooth the edges of the treated furniture. In addition, it is advisable to get an abrasive wheel for processing metal surfaces.

For example, you will need it when you need to cut or remove old handles.

Using planing tools, you can prepare the desired piece of furniture if the previous one has become unusable. If you are going to deal with the restoration thoroughly, then you will need to drill and finish all the gaps in the wood. Then you can not do without a brace, hand and electric drills, drills and countersinks. In addition, you will need a hacksaw, a bow saw, knives, and veneer saws.

For cleaning all required surfaces, it is advisable to have a set of flat and semicircular chisels, carpentry chisels.

In addition to all of the above, you will also need various auxiliary tools: spanners, files, hammers, screwdrivers, rasps, protractor, nail puller and electric drill.

In order to secure all the surfaces to be treated, wedges, rope devices, and clamps will definitely come in handy.

To securely fix the restored elements, you should install a vice for cutting and cutting metal, as well as purchase metal hammers and scissors for metal.

Furniture restoration products

Furniture varnishes

As a rule, furniture made from expensive types of wood will definitely need special protection.

All surfaces of such a set can be protected with special furniture varnishes, which are polished after application. Furniture varnish is necessary in order to reliably protect furniture from all kinds of external influences.

Coating a wooden surface with varnish is a process where the utmost care is required. Each varnish can have its own method of application, however, a spray gun is most often used.

There are varnishes that can be applied with a swab or brush, by pouring. In addition, this varnish can be preheated. Remember that each varnish has its own characteristic viscosity.

In most cases, furniture varnish dries completely in 2 hours, at a temperature of about 20 degrees. It can form a heat-resistant, light-resistant, or water-resistant coating.

When choosing a varnish, you need to decide in advance for what tasks it will be intended.

For example, the entire surface of chairs or a table must be covered with a sufficiently durable varnish, since it is constantly exposed to external influences. For children's furniture, you must choose the varnish with great care. The varnish should not contain harsh chemical compounds, any odors and harmful substances.

Furniture oil

However, varnish is not the only way to protect wood flooring. A good option is a special oil that is subsequently waxed.

Both oils and oils with hard wax are commercially available. Oil is applied to the surface much easier and faster than varnish, and the surface itself can acquire increased wear resistance.

In addition, the surface can be easily damped frequently.

The oil can penetrate all the pores of the wood, and only the smallest amount will remain on the surface. Thanks to this, the wooden surface will be quite durable and durable. When the surface is treated with oil, a protective film does not form.

Shellac

Quite often, for the restoration of furniture with their own hands, a coating such as shellac is used.

Shellac is a natural coating that can give absolutely any furniture a bright and soft surface. Shellac can be ideal for restoring very old or antique furniture.

The composition has a natural amber color and can give a product a special warmth and depth.

Today, shellac is produced from the secretions of insects, the so-called varnish bugs, which live in India and Pakistan. Lacquer bugs sit on the branches of shrubs or trees and feed on their sap.

During digestion, the juice is processed into a unique resinous substance that is released to the outside.

Shellac is usually orange (amber) in color and represents the best option in order to enhance the natural warmth of the wood color.

It is with this composition that most of the antique furniture is processed. If it is necessary to preserve the whiteness of the wood, then in this case a special bleached shellac is used.

Furniture restoration

It should be immediately reminded that only high-quality furniture can be restored.

If this is a Chinese chipboard, then it is not restored, but boldly thrown away. It is necessary to restore something that has served for a very long time and is capable of delighting its owners for many years to come. If the furniture is made with high quality, there is no need to "bury" it. If possible, be sure to extend her life.

If you have restored old furniture, then it will certainly ennoble your home. For example, Vacation home with such furniture has always been considered the standard of the classics, where a leisurely and measured life is conducted.

Remember that an antique chair or table, wardrobe or chest of drawers will always require only respect for yourself. Such furniture needs space in a small room, it will be very cramped. Give old furniture more space and new life.

As a rule, restoration can be of three levels of difficulty, and we will consider them in order.

The first degree of difficulty

1. The furniture has minor defects, abrasions and scratches.

If the "damage" is not too serious, then they can be painted over. Any artistic paint with a carefully selected color is suitable for this. The surface can be coated with a light coat of varnish or transparent nail polish. Of course, no one can promise durability, but that's enough for a couple of decades.

2. Deep cracks and scratches. For such troubles, you can use a special furniture wax. The wax can be either soft or colored.

In addition, the wax is divided into a transparent composition and a color shade. If transparent wax is used, then before that, the entire surface must be treated with enamel or colored varnish. In general, transparent wax is quite practical.

It is very cheap in cost and much more profitable.

3. Deep fossa from any impact or chipped surface. Such a defect can be attributed to cosmetic, but already quite serious. In these cases, wood putty will be required. It is necessary to choose the desired shade and smooth the damaged surface with a very thin layer.

Let the layer dry well, and then sandpaper it. After that, the surface is varnished.

The varnish layer is damaged. On furniture, from various blows, quite serious damage can form. This place needs to be flooded transparent varnish and let it dry.

Second degree of difficulty

1. It is necessary to change the old hinges, fasteners, and replace the nails with self-tapping screws. Everything should be as reliable and durable as possible.

2. Removing old paint.

With a wide flute, you need to very carefully cover the entire surface with a paint remover. After about an hour, we remove all this "art" with a spatula. If small rusty fragments appear, then they need to be treated with a special solution.

If dead wood tissue has formed on the furniture, it will need to be cleaned with a wire brush. After that, the treated surfaces are thoroughly rinsed under running water.

Remember, water should not penetrate deep inside, only rinse and no more.

Furniture or its elements are best dried outdoors (in the sun.). This can take about 2-3 days. Only after that, it is worth using wood putty. If you need to preserve the natural effect of antiquity, then we do not touch these places. If you need to close holes and openings from nails, then use a rubber trowel. You need to align in two layers and let each layer dry. After the second layer has dried, we process the surface with sandpaper.

Then we wipe it with a damp cloth. And after that, your furniture will be completely ready for painting.

3. Paint. It is advisable to pick up the paint in advance so as not to leave the furniture in this state. If the furniture is classic, then you can use some bed shades. It can be cream, peach, or coffee in color. Also, the ivory color looks original.

Black can also be used. Then, your furniture will look very impressive.

For painting very old furniture, popular acrylic is a great option. Acrylic, in addition to its practicality, will effectively keep the tree from possible destruction.

If you choose enamel, then alkyd is best. Of course, it dries longer, but this is a sign of quality. The paint itself can be used in a spray bottle or as a spray. You can use a sponge, thanks to which the paint penetrates much deeper.

Of course, you can use a regular brush, but make sure that all strokes fall evenly. For example, a wardrobe or shelving can be painted with a roller. However, if there are any protruding parts, then you cannot do without a sponge.

Do 2-3 layers and each layer must dry well.

Moving on to the varnish. The varnish can be matte, silky or glossy. To each his own. To cover the surface, it is best to use a spray, as it will be able to lie in an even thin and durable layer.

If you are going to use painting, then you need to decide on the style. Want Provence? then use a floral theme. If you want a country style, then apply a variety of stripes and squares. If you prefer ethnicity, then take Australian or African symbols.

To introduce a plant theme, use the double brushstroke technique. Draw large flowers and only then, move on to smaller flowers. Refresh your brush with paint as often as possible. It should not be completely dry, otherwise the smoothing and smooth transition effect will disappear.

Be sure to keep it even.

For country style, paper tape comes in handy. It will significantly speed up and simplify your work. Remember not to press the tape into the surface. Make the desired stencil from the scotch tape and lay it very carefully on the surface of the furniture. Keep an even coverage. For ethnostyle, all kinds of mosaic elements and contours are useful.

If you are modest and timid in your artistic endeavors, then you should resort to decoupage.

Purchase special three-layer napkins with original designs and use them to apply the design. Also, you will need a small jar of glue. Cut out the elements and remove the bottom two layers from the napkin. Cover the intended area with glue and attach the drawing. After all this is dry, use the same compound (varnish). And if you carefully trace the outline of the drawing, then everyone will take their word for it that this is handmade. After all the manipulations carried out, the surface must be varnished.

The third degree of difficulty

In principle, there is not much to say here.

Do-it-yourself furniture restoration will be quite difficult. If you need to replace the door, back or leg, then use the services of professionals. If you need to glue the parts, use epoxy glue.

You only need to prepare the glue according to the instructions. Carefully prepared surfaces are carefully lubricated with the prepared composition, then we maintain a short pause and squeeze strongly (tightly).

We restore old furniture with our own hands

We are waiting for a day, and you can use it.

Outcome

If restoration on your own does not save the situation, contact the real masters. Perhaps they will make a new part, and it will be much better than trying to "reanimate" the old one. But in any case, old (antique) furniture will still be useful to you, and your grandchildren will use it, remembering you with a kind word. After all, everything that we create with our own hands must live forever.

Furniture made from chipboard is one of the most common among consumers in this area.

Do-it-yourself furniture restoration

It is inexpensive and has good strength characteristics. For the production of furniture, refined laminated chipboard is most often used. This gives the furniture a complete look. However, like furniture made from other materials, chipboard products, over time, lose their attractive appearance.

Furniture items can be destroyed under an hour of transport, they could be improperly maintained. If there are children or animals in the house, then there is a high probability that damage will also appear on the surface of the laminated chipboard.

Scratches and chips, scuffs and dents may appear on chipboard furniture, cracks and deformations on the kitchen furniture. It is possible to restore the lost attractiveness. To do this, consider how to repair or update old chipboard furniture with your own hands using improvised means.

Basic materials

To repair old chipboard furniture, you will need:

a felt-tip pen for retouching (sometimes a regular one is used, in the color of the product);
hard colored wax and a device for melting it;
spatula, chisel;
felt-based fabric;
lacquer spray for fixing.

How to fix chips

To a large extent, chips form at the corners.

To restore such furniture, you must:

process the corners with a chisel;
melt the wax and seal the treated area;
after drying, cut off the excess and walk again with a chisel to level the surface;
sand the corners with a soft cloth;
retouching is applied with a felt-tip pen and immediately treats this place with a napkin to smooth out the shade;
the place sealed with wax, open with varnish.

Repair of furniture with scratches

The greatest number of scratches is found on furniture in children's rooms.

In this case, we proceed as follows:

melted wax is gently applied to the scratch and allowed to dry a little;
a scratch is covered with a felt-tip pen with retouch to update the texture;
the final stage is varnishing with a fixing varnish.

Shabby furniture repair

The restoration of scuffs most often occurs on kitchen furniture where humidity is high. And also often wiping off stains and crumbs leads to the formation of scuffs.

It is not difficult to update such old furniture with your own hands, for this:

take a microfiber cloth and apply a felt-tip pen that matches the color;
further, with this napkin, go over the shabby places and this should be done along the structural surface of the product;
after that, a fixing varnish is applied to the treated area.

Sealing cracks

Cracks often appear on old furniture, due to improper handling (sudden opening of doors in cabinets and pops), as well as if a chipboard product is used in a room with high humidity and is saturated with moisture, and then dries up.

The restoration of such products is as follows:

PVA glue is drawn into a syringe, after which a needle is put on it;
further, the glue is “driven” into the entire volume of the crack;
in order for the glue to "grab" it is necessary to use a clamp or other clamps, which must be used to grasp the place with a crack to tighten it;
blot the protruding glue with a napkin very carefully so that it does not spread over the surface;
the retainers are removed no earlier than in a day.

Using such simple techniques, you can easily update the furniture with your own hands at home.

It will cost less than refurbishing workshops or buying new products. The main thing is to prepare all the constituent materials and follow the phased implementation of the processes - let the adhesive components dry and securely fix the damaged areas with special means.

Do-it-yourself restoration of old antique furniture - video

Short description: You should not throw out the shabby furniture, perhaps it can still be given a second life.

Especially if the furniture available is antique. Using a nineteenth-century chair as an example, the master will show and comment step by step how the restoration of furniture is carried out.
Nowadays, when there are many various devices and special means, and especially a gel capable of removing material that has blackened from time to time, it is not so difficult to repair furniture.

It is very important at the beginning of the work itself to thoroughly polish the surface of the chair, and sand it after the putty.

Furniture restoration: giving new life to old objects

Particular attention is paid to the soft upholstery of the chair.

Added: 2014-05-29

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Do you remember how every autumn at school you had to write an essay on the topic “How I spent my summer”?

How to restore old furniture at home

God only knows who was interested in our trips to the sea, weeding in my grandmother's garden and playing with a ball in the company of their own kind of idiots.

I don’t know if my report will interest you, but out of an old school habit, I decided to write a short essay about how I spent my summer, or rather the most pleasant part of it - my vacation.

I already wrote about one of my summer activities - decoupage of a bag with Parisian motives.

And now I want to tell you about an equally useful and creative activity.

Restoration of old furniture using decoupage technique

I have one cabinet in my kitchen, old, old, from the 60s or even 50s. Solid, durable and very roomy. This is how this "shard of socialism" looked 13 years ago, when we got it from the previous owners:

In attempts to modernize "rare" furniture, this cabinet had to be repainted several times.

A few years ago, my husband and I made a radical change in its design, removing the top wall and cutting off the protruding corners of the sides.

And here is my locker on the eve of the next update: with self-adhesive wallpaper removed and places with a sanded surface.

And, of course, washed as thoroughly as possible in his old age.

To get started, I had to arm myself with a paint roller and paint and freshen up the cabinet surface. By the way, in addition to the post about materials at hand for decoupage: for toning white paint, I used the color "Snowball".

And when choosing a color in the store, I stocked up with several jars of different colors at once to use instead of artistic acrylic paints to create a background for decoupage bottles and other utensils, the surface of which has a fairly large area.

This results in significant savings.

Then I pasted over the cabinet with self-adhesive wallpaper. A ten-meter roll was enough for the entire outer and for most of inner surface... Self-adhesive was initially selected light and not too motley so that the pasted decoupage motifs were not lost and were clearly visible.

Perhaps you will not believe it, but the most difficult part of the restoration of an old kitchen cabinet turned out to be the selection of napkins for decoupage. I really wanted to decorate the cabinet with a picture of berries.

After all, all kinds of fruits are associated with wealth. And prosperity in the kitchen is a vital thing. But there were no suitable size "fruit" napkins. But there was a napkin with autumn maple leaves.

Oh, how sad it becomes in summer at the thought that soon hot days will be replaced by autumn leaf fall! But suddenly I remembered the song that Nikolai Karachentsov sang so sincerely:

It's time for the birds to go,
Birds dream of the south
Yellow maple leaf yesterday
He sat in my palm.
There is nothing like that here,
Yellow leaf like a bird yesterday
He sat in my palm.

Maple leaf, maple leaf
I dream about you in the middle of winter
Shakes snow outside the window.
The moment everything was covered with snow
And my soul is white and white,

Touch my tired age,
Giving quiet sleep
Return as a lost bird
In the cold of January.
Let someone tell me in response -
There is nothing like that here,
Return as a reckless bird
In the cold of January.

Maple leaf, maple leaf
I dream about you in the middle of winter
Dream at that moment when the blizzard
Shakes snow outside the window.
The moment everything was covered with snow
And my soul is white and white,
I dream about you, red maple leaf,
Dream, dream, red maple leaf.

Birds dream of the sea and the south,
Gold in the haze.
Yellow leaf trusting me
Suddenly sat in my palm
Let someone tell me in response,
Nothing like that here
Jumping off the branch yellow leaf,
Suddenly he sat in my palm.

And I thought: after all, someday winter will come.

And then the bright yellow-crimson maple leaves will surely warm the soul with the gentle warmth of early autumn. And with this thought, I cut out all the leaves from the napkin along the contour, stratified them and pasted the top paint layer with decoupage glue.

To fix the glued motifs, I covered the entire outer surface of the cabinet with three layers of high-gloss acrylic varnish.

This will make the cabinet much easier to clean. In addition, the varnish was gone quite a bit, since the self-adhesive prevented it from being absorbed.

It is quite difficult to capture the general view of the restored cabinet, photographing it in a not very spacious kitchen, and even from around the corner of the refrigerator.

But, I think, even in individual fragments, one can see a striking difference between the renovated furniture and its original state.

And let some of the inhabitants of the apartment pretend that the renovation of the kitchen furniture did not make any impression on them,

the cabinet now looks much better than it did before the restoration.

So thanks to the decoupage technique: it helped me out and allowed me to give old furniture a new appearance, and with it a new life at minimal material costs.

As you can see, sometimes even renovation can be creative, exciting and enjoyable.

And, I think, the logical conclusion of my summer report on the restoration of an old kitchen cabinet using decoupage technique with autumn motives will be a poetic video by Pyotr Linev with a wonderful song from the movie "A Little Favor":

Enjoy the restoration of old furniture with HobbyMama!

Do-it-yourself furniture restoration is not only fun. And not so much. One of the main principles of the ideology of the consumer society is expressed very simply: 1.7-2.5 warranty periods, and go to the landfill. Turnover, employment. Oh yes, ecology. That is, not a landfill, but recycling. With some more turnover and employment. And to the ordinary consumer, for whose sake everything seems to be spinning - buy, buy, buy! No money - get credit, get credit, get credit! From 1/3 to 3/4, according to various estimates, the intellectual potential of developers in the world is working tirelessly so that the thing, boss forbid, does not last too long. And this also applies to furniture.

The old furniture makers worked knowing that the thing is bought for generations. Their aesthetics and artistic taste have been perfected over the centuries and therefore organically take into themselves the trends of modernity. That is why old furniture is growing rapidly in price. Refreshing old furniture isn't just about saving you a lot of money and adding sophistication to your home. The connection of times is firmly held in furniture, and in the relations of people surrounded by revived furniture, psychologists note an order of magnitude fewer problems than those who like to regularly update.

About the soul of the master

Each master puts a piece of his soul into his products - this is not a metaphor. With the form, texture, relief, pattern of his products, an intelligent master says something, and expresses something. He is not beech and not rigorous; today he would find a worthy use for decoupage, and acrylic with silicone, and graffiti from a spray can. But, before you start updating furniture with decoration, ask yourself: how much do you understand this language? What did he want to say? Would your addition to this be appropriate?

Attention - time!

First of all, you need to figure out whether antiques have come to you? Then - WE DO NOT DO ANYTHING BEFORE HIS EVALUATION. Museums and collectors entrust the restoration only to trusted masters, and any amateur activity of amateurs reduces the cost of a thing tens, hundreds of times, down to zero.

How to determine, without spoiling the object, antique furniture or not? On three grounds: brand, angles, fastener sizes. It is very important: you need to remove the fasteners with a slotted screwdriver, not too narrow or wide, with an even sting, but with slightly licked corners. It additionally needs to be wrapped with aluminum foil so as not to scratch the patina on the metal, this also sharply reduces the value.

First of all, we take out all the boxes and inspect their corners. Roundness without scoring is a sign of antiquity. Now we are looking for brands.

The brand must be looked for on the back wall, underside of the countertop and the bottom. Dust and cobwebs are carefully removed with a soft brush or vacuum cleaner. If you can see at least a piece of the old brand, move on. We also check the boxes - there are stamps on their bottoms, and they coincide with the main one - we're lucky, you can already call an appraiser.

Fasteners - screws, screws, corners - we carefully examine. The thread is non-standard, the step and the profile are floating - it means that it is old; cut by hand or on a primitive machine with a foot or bow drive.

We also measure the diameters of the screw bodies and the thickness of the metal of the corners with a barbell. The machine-made fasteners will be one-to-one, and the old, hand-made ones are unlikely to be maintained with an accuracy higher than 0.2-0.25 mm.

Attention - two!

An incident from life - a grandmother died; decided to get rid of her old furniture set. Obviously not antique, Soviet, from fiberboard. The owner thought: there was no self-adhesive then? What, then, is this furniture veneered with? Cleaned the piece as described below. It turned out - outside the most valuable veneer of Karelian birch, and inside - also very valuable "white Cuban cedar", albinia, from which humidors and cigar boxes are made.

Then the furniture was disassembled into layers (boards), the varnish was removed with a CM-1 remover. Then, heating with a household hairdryer, suspended with a wide spatula, without breathing, they separated the veneer sheets. The remnants of the glue were perfectly removed by the same CM-1. After that, the veneer was sprayed from a spray bottle and dried under oppression, laying a pure white dense toilet paper.

Then three months were spent in search of a direct bona fide buyer: as it turned out, around the old furniture of dealers swarming like flies in the slaughterhouse. But! As a result, the amount received only for veneer was more than enough for a complete new furnishing of the apartment.

Renovation and restoration

Complete renovation of furniture with renewal and new decor includes the following steps:

Acclimatization;
Disassembly;
Cleaning and washing;
Surface revision;
Elimination of varnish defects or its remover, depending on its condition and further intentions;
Elimination of wood defects;
Bulkhead and reinforcement of fasteners;
Veneering;
Painting and priming of wood;
Painting and / or painting the surface of the tree;
Surface decoration;
Aging;
Protective varnishing;
Polishing;
Tightening of seats, pillows, armrests, if upholstered furniture is being repaired;
Assembly.

Note: upholstery and other soft furnishings are classified as surface decoration.

All of these works may well be done at home. But before describing the work operations, we will give a summary of the tools and materials, so as not to be scattered and distracted in the future.

What about the table?

The stumbling block in the restoration of the table is not the countertop at all, as it might seem: it is easily washed and cleaned with the compounds described below. The main problem is the bottom of the legs, they are both dirty and battered and wet the most. This will require removing the veneer, treating the wood, restoring the shape of the legs with liquid wood and reliably strengthening their fastenings, this is one of the most loaded furniture units.

At the same time, the bottom of the legs is out of sight and minor flaws in the work will not be evident. Therefore, table restoration is the perfect start for an amateur furniture maker. Experienced craftsmen give the tables to the students to work.

Tool

From the furniture tool you will need:

Drill with a set of wood drills.
A set of chisels from 4 to 40 mm.
End plane (picker, scherhebel).
Several clamps.
Mallet.
Joiner's hammer with a nail clipper.
Embossing hammer (with spherical butt).
A set of flat and Phillips screwdrivers.
Manual and jigsaws; you can get by with one manual.
Bow saw or hacksaw for metal - for a clean hand cut wood.
Assembly knife.
Shoe knife-joint.
Locksmith ruler and square.
Iron and household hair dryer.
Pliers, large or medium and small.
Round nose pliers.
Furniture stapler and staples 20-30 mm to it.
A smooth wooden block covered with felt or felt under an emery cloth or an abrasive mesh.
Double layer kitchen sponge.
File and rasp.
Scissors and sewing supplies.
A polisher is a piece of felt, cloth or rawhide.
Paste GOI.
Artistic brushes, round and flat. Columnar or squirrel - not necessarily, the simplest ones will go, from bovine ear bristles.

Blends and formulations

The restoration of old furniture assumes that all work is carried out according to the original technology. However, for yourself, if the furniture is not antiques for sale, it is quite possible to use modern, fairly well-tested materials. In particular, joinery glue is being successfully replaced by PVA; he is praised even by such fastidious as second-hand booksellers. For convinced retrogrades, we still give a diagram of a glue cooker, see fig .: brewed on gas, it does not differ in high quality.

Also, washing is best done with dishwashing detergents: their chemical reaction is neutral. There is no doubt about the suitability of acrylic lacquer for furniture, especially since it can be polished with any car polish. Complex relief is washed with a soft natural hair toothbrush.

But with formulations containing organic solvents, you need to be careful. If they do not spoil the material, then they give a temporary effect: the glossy surface soon fades again. Therefore, below we give recipes for different cases (which will be discussed below), tested by experience.

Note: if the composition contains ethyl alcohol, kerosene, vinegar, ammonia and other chemically active substances, then its effect must first be checked on some insignificant area - the end of the face and the inner coal.

Furniture wax (wax) of different colors can be made yourself from melted white beeswax by pouring melted crushed leads of colored pencils into it; colors can be mixed. In addition to the accurate selection of the tone, the method is also economical: the material is prepared in portions as needed. Another advantage is that using white lead as an additive, you can vary the consistency of the mixture over a wide range, while maintaining the tone.

Grout for cracks in varnish

Recipe 1- paraffin and colored furniture wax 1: 1. The composition, matched by tone, is rubbed into the cracks with a polish, until warming up from friction. The residues are removed with a lint-free (old and well-worn) rag moistened with kerosene or turpentine. Also suitable for grouting small cracks in wood.

Recipe 2, for small scratches - linseed or burdock oil and ethyl alcohol 1: 1. Apply with a swab made of white flannel or flannel; after drying, polish with a clean, dry cloth.

Stain removers and cleaners

For painted countertops, wipe with a baking soda solution first. After drying - cleaning from plaque with a dry cloth. Then - rubbing with an aqueous solution of ammonia (2 tsp per liter of warm water).

The varnishing is cleaned with a swab soaked in a solution of dishwashing detergent, and then with a wipe soaked in clean water swab. For heavily soiled surfaces, after wiping with detergent, wait 1-2 hours, covering the surface with a slightly damp cloth. If after cleaning the surface turns out to be dull, rub it with a swab, barely moistened with vegetable oil.

For surfaces captured and covered with kitchen fumes - rub with talcum powder, brush it off with a rag. Then wash warm water with ammonia, as indicated above. The second way is to wipe it with a rough cloth soaked in hot beer. And a method that is completely safe for any polishing is wet, sleeping tea wrapped in a clean cloth. Wipe the surface with a swab until cleaning, and then wipe it clean with a dry cloth.

For splashes from whitewash and water-based paint - 2-3 drops into a glass of wine vinegar olive oil... Wash off with light movements of the tampon soaked in the mixture.

For white spots from water - sprinkle the spot with flour, and then wipe it until it disappears with a swab, barely moistened with olive, palm, corn or refined sunflower oil. Polished with velvet.

For white spots from hot - rub in a 1: 1 mixture of paraffin with wax of the desired tone, cover with a blotter and iron with an iron. Polished with a cloth or felt. If the varnish is not burnt deeply, has not swelled up, has not acquired a noticeable graininess, then sprinkle the stain with table salt, drip 3-5 drops of vegetable oil on it and stand for 2-3 hours. Then the mixture is brushed off and rubbed with a cloth in a circular motion until the stain disappears. Finally, dissolving a piece of colored wax in boiling beer, rub the hot mixture with a cloth until the tone is restored.

Wood cleaners

The wood of most species is well cleaned from the surface with a mixture: olive or linseed oil, denatured alcohol (namely denatured alcohol!), Turpentine and clarified lemon juice in equal proportions. Oak can be cleaned well with hot beer.

Notes:

There are many recipes for surface wood cleaners. It is important to know that any of these with vinegar will spoil the mahogany immediately.

Effective wood cleaner and concealer minor defects- rubbing with a green walnut peel. The resistance of wood to rot and pests also increases due to the saturation of the surface layer with tannin. But the peel strongly tints the wood, so that the treatment of individual areas is almost never possible.

Wicker, cane and rattan furniture is washed and cleaned with warm water and ammonia. Convenient for this is a flute brush made of second-hand natural hair, i.e. soft, or soft toothbrush, but also made of natural bristles.

Polishes

The polish fills lacquer microcracks and wood pores, so the furniture surface remains glossy and solid wood is protected from damage. The most common polishes are based on wax and solvent: alcohol, turpentine, household (non-fuel) gasoline. Automotive polishes are suitable for lacquered furniture. The shelf life of polishes is limited, so here are two recipes for self-preparation in small portions.

Recipe 3: beeswax (can be colored) - 40% by weight; gasoline or turpentine - 60%. You need to measure the ingredients by weight, not by volume!

Recipe 4: ceresin (somewhat worse - paraffin, not stearin) - 55%; pine rosin - 5%; gasoline - 40%

Both compounds need to be rubbed into furniture, and they require regular use: if you quit regular maintenance, the furniture will tarnish for several months. Therefore, we present two more recipes without organic solvents, suitable for both varnish and open wood. With these compositions, furniture can be simply sprayed from a spray bottle or applied with a clean cloth without rubbing, and no special regularity of maintenance is required. But the surface of the furniture must be clean, otherwise the dirt will stick deep into it.

Recipe 5, for old, dry wood: a quarter glass of olive or palm oil and 2 tbsp. l. tablespoons of clarified lemon juice. For the scent, you can add 2-10 drops of essential oil (pine, citrus, etc.) or perfume fragrance.

Recipe 6 ,for fresh wood susceptible to dirt: a quarter glass of clarified lemon juice and 1 tsp. olive oil. It is undesirable to add fragrances, they can react with active components of young wood.

Paints

Painting of furniture with a dense layer is done with oil paints or acrylic enamels. Nitro-, glyphthalic and pentaphthalic paints are of little use for home furniture: they penetrate very deeply into wood, paint consumption is high, and its complete removal is impossible. But for country and garden furniture, this disadvantage may turn out to be an advantage. Under oil paint, the surface is primed with linseed oil, and under acrylic paint - with a water-polymer emulsion.

For painting with emphasizing the texture of the tree, stains and stains are used. Stains are available in all colors of the rainbow and penetrate the wood shallowly, by 0.3-0.5 mm, so that then the painted layer can be removed with sandpaper. But staining looks somewhat unnatural; it can be seen that it is dyed.

The stains penetrate a few mm into the wood and give the natural look of the stained wood. coloring is achieved due to the interaction of the mordant with the tanning agents contained in the wood. Therefore, not every tree can be painted with mordants, but only those containing tangible quantities of tannin. From domestic breeds - oak perfectly perceives mordant, and with birch it is better not to try. With any others - you need a test painting of a small area, because the content of tanning agents depends on the aging time of the wood.

Furniture fabrics

Facial

Do-it-yourself upholstering of furniture requires special careful choice fabrics. It's not about its appearance, traditional jacquard, tapestry, velor, flock, courtesan and chinilla will do; dress fabrics are absolutely unsuitable - they do not stretch well, they will quickly wipe. The point is the drawing - a beginner furniture maker can only recommend a small, not very contrasting one.

Firstly, the pattern on the seat and back must be consistent - a strip that has left to the side or shifted halves of a flower will immediately ruin the whole look. You will have to buy an expensive fabric with a 15-20% margin for matching the pattern, and there is no guarantee that after completing the work, you will not have to understand that all the upholstery needs to be changed.

This difficulty can still be circumvented by using the complementary fabric method. For example, if the upholstery of the back of the chair is green jacquard with large leaves, then you can put on the seat a velor of a similar tone or tapestry with a flowing pattern. Say, there is grass below, and above there are leaves.

However, it is not for nothing that the hauling of furniture is called so: you cannot do without pulling the fabric. And then the drawing will stretch, and in a large drawing, the distortion of the contours will be oh-oh-very noticeable. Upholstering furniture with pattern matching is a delicate art, and even the famous masters did not immediately succeed. Therefore, it is better to make the first furniture pancake with a small dull pattern or even a plain one.

Purl and lining

Inside out, lining furniture upholstery there are linen canvas or jute burlap. Synthetics, sisal, etc. slippery fabrics are completely unsuitable: the upholstery on them will soon go, and to cover the sofa is not to fix the coat. The hemp is also not good: although it is rough, it quickly wears out and at the same time becomes dusty.

About seams

Sewing work can be dispensed with only when upholstering a simple chair, and even then an insert into the seat or back may be required. The chain stitches, which most sewing machines give, are not suitable for furniture: as soon as the abrasion of such a seam reaches a certain degree, it unravels by itself.

Furniture upholstery is sewn with sail seams, but machines designed for them with a pneumatic or electric rapier thread transfer mechanism are expensive. However, the simplest sail seam, the diagram of which is shown in the figure, is easy to lead by hand. If sewing with a coarse thread or dratva, the loop is pulled out onto the face with a thin steel crochet hook. For hand sewing with a thin thread, a sewing machine needle in any suitable frame is suitable; then the loop is left inside out. In any case, the second running end of the thread is threaded into a regular needle and threaded into the loop.

Each stitch is pulled up alternately from the face and from the inside out, so that the thread goes into the fabric, and the overlap is in its thickness. If the thread is over, its ends are tied from the inside with a straight knot, and the continuation of the seam is carried out with an interception of 2-3 stitches.

Note: the famous denim figure eight - the most complex and perfect of the sail seams. Levi Strauss, having decided to sew work trousers from Genoese (Jenuis) canvas, which was at least heaped on the market in the era of the replacement of sailing ships with steamships, borrowed from sailors and a seam. So, if you have a typewriter with an eight - good luck!

Foam rubber and synthetic winterizer

The stuffing of furniture with horsehair is almost never done, even for an exclusive; batting and felt are also becoming obsolete - modern synthetic materials surpass them in all respects. If they are of the proper quality, of course.

Foam rubber is divided into grades by density (it is the specific weight in kg / cubic meter), indicated by two numbers: 20, 35, 45, etc. Elasticity also depends on the brand, which is important for stuffing. They check the quality of the foam rubber by squeezing it to the limit with your fingers: a suitable one, if released, immediately shoots back to level, and a bad one gradually straightens out, and a dent may remain. By the way, foam rubber that is not suitable for furniture can be an excellent insulation or filter.

Furniture synthetic winterizer should be pure white and solid, firstly. The patchwork color is most likely made from waste; possibly toxic. Secondly, the padding mat should be strong enough, not to creep when pulled by hands with little effort, both along and across the fibers.

Getting Started

About plywood

Some alterations may be necessary for the base of the chairs' seats, the bottoms and sides of the drawers. Furniture makers have been using plywood for these parts since it appeared, and for good reason: for parts that are not decorative, but loaded, plywood is indispensable.

Old plywood often turns out to be delaminated, and then there is a temptation: for the sake of "authenticity" to replace it with a board. For bottoms - not necessary. They are out of sight, and modern plywood of the FB, FK, FSF or BS brands will withstand more and last longer than an array of the most durable types of wood of the same thickness. Well, the sides of the boxes are a different matter. They are visible, are lightly loaded, and for the sake of decorativeness, they can be made planks.

Liquid tree

To seal wide gaps and potholes, you will have to use liquid wood. The best is homemade acrylic: 1 part resin with hardener 3-4 parts sawdust. Sifted and sorted sawdust in a variety of shades and grades are sold in hardware stores.

Liquid wood on epoxy changes the tone of the wood and becomes very fragile over time. As for the very cheap and easy-to-use silicate (on liquid glass) liquid wood, it is only good enough to quickly patch it up: liquid glass is a well-known silicate glue, fragile and not waterproof.

Acclimatization

The furniture delivered to the place of work must be kept in the new microclimate for 3-4 days, or better - a week, otherwise it may begin to crack and warp right during work. On the second day, you need to take out and fold all the boxes separately. Indoor temperature - 18-24 degrees; humidity - up to 75%. Direct sunlight or streams warm air should not fall on furniture.

Disassembly

Note: decorative upholstered furniture is often very valuable, especially if the original wallpaper nails have been preserved. Therefore, it must be removed first of all and very carefully. It is highly advisable to consult with an antique furniture dealer about her further destiny and cleaning methods.

Screws and screws

Threaded connections are disassembled as usual: with screwdrivers, keys, pliers. The main condition is no emphasis on wood. If the screwdriver still strives to slip out or the screw turns, take a closer look at where and how to hold his body with pliers, platypuses or round-nose pliers. If you have completely sat down, you need to let a drop or two of spindles or watch oil, wait half an hour or an hour and try again. In general, patience and ingenuity.

If, together with the screw, the cracked wood crawled out and a tightly bonded threaded socket under it - it does not matter, then we will tell you how to put it in place later so that it is stronger than the new one. And do not rush to bite or saw the screw: drip brake fluid or kerosene, clamp the head with small pliers, the socket with large ones, and with a sharp jerk of two hands in different directions, tear off the seized thread.

Nails

First things first, inspect back side connections. If the nail is bent, pry it off with a flat screwdriver, bend it with pliers and hit it on the edge with a hammer so that the head pops out. Has become attached - a spindle or machine oil. A hat appeared - carefully pull it with pliers; The nail-rider will remember the tree. When pulling out, you need to grab wallpaper nails under the cap by the rod, otherwise the decorative cap may break off.

If the nail is hammered in, then we try to shake and pull the parts fastened by it, so that, again, the cap pops out. Here again oil will help. Suddenly the hat goes into the tree - attention, stop! We carefully drill it out, remove the upper part from the rod, and pull out the rod itself with oil.

Glue

All old wood glues are alcohol soluble. To separate the glue joint, drip it along the contour with alcohol every 2-3 cm and cover or wrap it with foil or parchment paper. After 10-30 minutes. you can try to separate, or repeat the procedure. Especially carefully you need to remove the wooden decor: it dries up most of all.

For separating glued joints, an assembly knife with a segmented blade is very convenient: if you press too hard, the segment breaks off, but the tree remains intact, and a very thin blade can be pushed into almost any gap. The bottoms, glued into the grooves, are little by little, from the end, pry off with a narrow chisel.

Lugs

Countersunk joints on blind wooden bosses - dowels, in a nautical way - are simple, wedged or glued. Simple and easy to separate. Glued is dug in with alcohol, and the parts are slowly pulled apart. If the dowel is wedged, the parts will disperse slightly at first, but will not go further. Then you just need to saw the dowel with a jigsaw or cut it with the same assembly knife. How to plant new pins will be described below.

Mustache and thorns

Connections on a mustache and a thorn, if they are not completely dry, it is better to leave it as it is, having smeared the grooves with liquid wood. If you need to disassemble the connection with a mustache, first we look to see if it is supported by a nail or a dowel. The nail is pulled out, the nail is drilled out or sawn through. Spike connection dovetail type is separated, expanding the details, like a book. Glued joints are soaked with alcohol as described.

Cleaning

We remove the cobweb and dust with a vacuum cleaner; brush off the remains with a soft brush. We vacuum the cloth upholstery and go over it with a new shoe brush wrapped in cotton cloth. There is no need to tear and throw away: we need a template for a new upholstery. In addition, the old one after washing and dry cleaning may well return to its place and serve for a long time, and new furniture fabrics are expensive. If we are restoring furniture, then, you see, its upholstery will be valuable: with hand embroidery, tapestry, etc.

Doors, plates and internal parts are washed with a swab dipped in a solution of dishwashing detergent, laying them in a horizontal position. Then we also wipe with a swab with warm water and wipe dry with a paper towel or toilet paper. Old dirt will not come off immediately, so the detergent should not be washed off immediately, but after 5-20 minutes, and the procedure must be repeated until clean varnish or wood.

Revision, cleaning, washing

The next step is to inspect the surface. It may well turn out that after removing minor defects (stains, cracks) and cleaning the wood with the compositions described above, new polishing and varnishing will not be needed: traditional technologies were designed for centuries. This will facilitate the work, reduce costs, but, on the contrary, add the value of furniture. But in this case, you will have to be especially careful at further stages so as not to spoil the original coating.

Advice: If the furniture is not varnished and after all the cleaning procedures the wood looks dirty, try waxing it with beer wax, like oak.

If the varnish is not good for anything and needs to be washed off, then it is better to do this with non-toxic surface-active (surfactant) washes such as CM-1 or CM-2. The best way- with a liquid wash in a horizontal position: a grid is scratched on the coating with a step of 20-30 mm and a wash is applied. Ordinary varnishes are removed in a layer immediately, for acrylic you need to give an exposure for half an hour, covering the part with a film. Remove the varnish with a spatula with blunted smooth corners so as not to scratch the wood. The procedure can be repeated. Gel washes are suitable for vertical use, but are more expensive and less uniform.

Note: cleaning the tree with sandpaper on a wooden block should be postponed for an emergency - and the tree is eaten, and there will be no mirror-even surface.

Wood defects

Most of the wood defects found on a clean surface can be eliminated with your own hands:

Small cracks are rubbed with colored wax after steaming.
Chips and dents are filled with liquid wood.
Traces of rot and pest activity are scraped out with a chisel, and filled with liquid wood.

The purpose of steaming is to soften and warm up the wood, then the grout will saturate it properly; small cracks can converge and stick together by themselves. A household steam generator such as the Vaporone is ideal for steaming, but it costs a lot and for something else, no matter how advertised, it is not very suitable.

At home, it is not bad to steam with an ordinary kettle with a tight lid on an electric stove. A little water is poured into it so that it does not close the drain holes inside, and a hose made of heat-resistant rubber or medical silicone, also heat-resistant, is pulled over the spout. After steaming, the area to be treated is dried with a household hairdryer and rubbed with wax while it is still warm. The remains of the wax are removed with a swab dipped in turpentine.

"Herbs" based on copper sulfate, biocides of the old days, are toxic and spoil the tree. Now on sale there is a wide selection of biological products against rot, mold, bugs and complex. Most of them are used once, but first you should check the degree of damage to the wood with an awl: several holes with a pinhead on the surface can lead into a whole labyrinth of woodcutter's passages, because of which the board can be pierced with a finger.

About old veneer

Before tackling the fasteners, you need to determine whether the old plywood is of value and, if so, remove it. The removal and alignment procedure is described at the beginning of the article.

Mountings

Reinforcement of fasteners is most often reduced to drilling existing nests or holes from old fasteners, and then to installing new dowels from solid resistant wood (oak, boxwood, dogwood, acacia, mountain ash) on PVA glue - it is pre-buried in a hole - and wedges , see fig. Such a dowel will sit tightly for many decades, it is only necessary that the wedge is oriented across the fibers of the base, see fig. on right.

Note: if the nest at the end of the face is broken, and the board is split, the chips are coated with PVA, squeeze the face with a clamp through the plywood gaskets, and only after complete drying they put the dowel.

If the dowel is a lug, then it is left protruding, and a response wedge is baited before assembly; wedges also make them from hard wood or fiberglass, 0.5-1 mm. If the dowel goes under a self-tapping screw or a screw socket, then it is cut off flush and passed with a scherhebel.

It is better to drill holes for self-tapping screws and sockets right away. Under the nests - by the diameter of their bodies and depth by height. For self-tapping screws - with a diameter of 2/3 of the body of a self-tapping screw without a thread and a depth of 2/3 of the length of its threaded part.

Note: this method of strengthening the fastenings is also suitable for Viennese chairs and other openwork structures, but without wedging - you will have to take very small pins.

Completely dry mustache and thorns (except for the dovetail) are glued with gaskets from thin plywood or veneer on PVA. Bonding technology - common for wood:

The parts are impregnated with a water-polymer emulsion and dried with a hairdryer for 10-20 minutes.
Both surfaces are lubricated with PVA and allowed to dry for a day or two, until completely dry.
PVA is applied to one of the surfaces, dried until tack-free (usually 10-25 minutes).
The surfaces are folded and compressed with a clamp or oppression; wedges are driven into the grooves of the spikes and mustaches, laying polyethylene so that they do not stick.
Dry for a day, and you're done.

Veneering

High-quality veneering is made in two layers: the underside is made of rotary cut veneer of commercial wood and the face is made of sliced veneer of valuable species. Unfortunately, when the veneer is peeled off, both layers tend to come together, and they have to be separated, and for this you need to remove the veneer from the entire surface and veneer it again.

The old glue is removed with a surfactant remover, but gluing has some peculiarities:

After applying a sheet of underside for final gluing, step 4 in the previous one. the list, they immediately iron out the bubbles with a hot stamping hammer: large and elongated with a striker, and small rounded ones - with a butt.
Smoothed at 45 degrees with respect to the veneer grain herringbone, i. E. alternately in different directions.
As soon as the bubbles subside, the entire surface is ironed with a hot iron.
The layer is covered with polyethylene, a sheet of thick, even plywood is applied and dried for at least 3-4 days under heavy pressure.
If, after drying, bubbles are found, a PVA emulsion is injected into them with a syringe and smoothing is repeated.
The front sheet is glued in the same way.

Note: ironing cold is pointless - the essence of ironing is not about accelerating the drying of the glue, but about softening the wood.

Priming and painting

Under oil paints and varnishes, they are primed with linseed oil heated to 60-70 degrees in a water bath. Under others paintwork- it or a water-polymer emulsion room temperature... No primer is required for waxing (see below); a primer for Khokhloma painting is described acc. section.

Painting to emphasize the texture of the tree is done with stain or mordant; both - according to the manufacturer's instructions. Aniline stains are diluted in water at 70-80 degrees. For brightness, a few drops of alcohol are introduced into the ready-to-use solution.

Video: washing and painting an old chair

Painting and painting

Painting and artistic painting of furniture are made with oil, gouache or aniline paints according to the appropriate technology and on the primer described above. It should be noted that gouache and aniline will not give a dense layer on the wood, like stain; they are most often applied to a background of oil or glue paint.

Any of the traditional Russian techniques is suitable for furniture: Khokhloma, Gorodets, Polkhov-Maidan. Of course, the plots are not at all necessary to take the primordial mythological; these techniques give a long lasting finish that is suitable for varnishing. However, Khokhloma, the most perfect and refined (see fig), is written especially:

The layer is covered with a very liquid mixed fatty clay.
Abundantly primed with hot linseed oil.
Rub in the background - bronze, aluminum powder or whitewash.
Painted with oil or egg paints
The dried painting is covered with linseed oil.
The painting is baked at 110-120 degrees, until the drying oil is golden.

Decor and aging

Surface decoration of furniture, in addition to artistic painting, includes the following main varieties:

Waxing.
Decorative upholstery.
Wooden inlay.
Wood carving.
Applications.

We will not talk about carving, it is a separate and complex subject. Let's analyze what is possible for a beginner at home.

Waxing

Regular waxing of exposed wood gives it a very sophisticated look. Produced in a wide range of wax mastics for furniture; any varnish with wax described above is also suitable for this purpose. But you need to wax it regularly, otherwise the furniture will soon tarnish, and it will be difficult to restore the softness and warmth of the surface tone.

Decorative upholstery

Nowadays, furniture is not upholstered with damask or tapestries: they get dusty, get dirty, and require careful maintenance. But now there is such wonderful material as linkrusta, invented by the author of linoleum Frederick Walton.

Linkrusta is a soft, lightweight linoleum that is not suitable for flooring, but adheres to vertical surfaces. Linkrusta is available in white rolls with embossed patterns, up to multi-figure art scenes. Linkrusta adheres firmly to the glue, and the paint adheres perfectly to it. Using the technique of patinating furniture (see below), you can get a finish that would not have been rejected in Versailles during the time of Louis XIV, see fig.

Inlay

Real wood inlay - intarsia - is not available for independent execution. But it can be successfully replaced by a mosaic made of wood - marquetry. They make marquetry like this:

On a sheet of paper on PVA from pieces of veneer, possibly tinted with stain, a drawing is collected in a MIRROR REFLECTION.
When the glue dries, the drawing is turned upside down with the paper and glued to the surface, like veneering.
The paper with a layer of glue is removed with a fine, 220-240 number, sandpaper on a block.
The entire marquetry is covered with a protective varnish.

Applications

The simplest and most affordable of wood-based applications is decoupage. There are many ready-made kits on sale, and the technique is simple: fragments of colored paper are glued onto a base with PVA or acrylic and then varnished.

Aging

Many people want to age their furniture. There are two main ways: craquelure and patina. Patinating furniture is not at all creating an artificial patina on metal; it is used not only for aging, but also for surface decoration in the Provencal style, see fig. on right. You need to know that craquelure on patinated furniture is hardly ever appropriate: patinated most often under metal, and who has ever seen bronze or silver in a mesh of small cracks? But let's move on to the technique.

Craquelure

Craquelure on furniture is made with the same krake varnish as on painting or Venetian plaster. Krake is applied to the set, but still damp, giving a slight touch of paint. Freezing, the krake shrinks, pulls the still soft paint, and a network of small cracks forms on it. Craquelure can be coated with protective varnish.

Furniture patina

Patination of furniture is the sequential application of all shrinking layers of all lightening paint to it, in this way the oxidized worn metal is imitated. Each layer is shaded. For patination under bronze, first apply golden metallic acrylic paint, and on it - its own bronze or rub in bronze powder. Silver patinating, as in the linkrust illustration, can be done with aluminum and then zinc powder.

The main principle is that they patinate from the depressions on the bulges, because in reality the relief is erased along the tops. The technique is as follows:

A drop of paint of the first layer is taken on the corner of a flat brush, injected into the cavity and shaded roughly with the same brush.
When seized with a gloss, velvet or cloth, shade cleanly towards the bulge, gradually reducing the tone to the background.
The second, and, if necessary, subsequent layers are also applied.

With outward simplicity, the technique of patinating furniture requires serious skill and a firm hand, so you need to master it gradually, training on various kinds of debris and waste.

Video: antique wood painting

Varnishing and polishing

For protective varnishing of furniture, use any furniture varnishes. It is better to cover aged furniture for a view with oil varnish, but it dries for a long time and requires regular maintenance with a polish with vegetable oil or wax with turpentine. Nevertheless, the best furniture varnish should be recognized as transparent or tinted acrylic: it is suitable for any surface, is extremely durable and resistant and requires virtually no maintenance.

Polishing of "old" types of varnishes is done with cloth, velvet or felt, but they rub the acrylic poorly, because of its strength. The acrylic coating is polished with a leather polish (this is faster, but only on smooth surfaces) or felt with GOI paste. Kerosene is dripped onto the polish until noticeably moistened, rubbed with GOI, and then the furniture is polished. The paste leaves a little: if the polishing has gone hard, but the GOI greens are still visible on the polish, they just drip more kerosene. Traces of GOI on furniture can be easily erased with a cloth slightly moistened with the same kerosene.

Upholstery

It is very, very difficult to upholster furniture, even with templates in the form of old upholstery at hand.... Therefore, we leave the upholstery for last, after all the woodwork. The second reason is that paint, varnish and varnish can get on the skin. You also need to start upholstery work from the simplest thing - from an upholstered chair.

Chairs

The upholstery of the seat and back of the chair rests on a plywood base. They are attached to the frame either with screws through the upholstery from the rear, or inserted into the slots on it. Repairing chairs most often comes down to replacing worn-out upholstery, and this is a great opportunity to get a handle on the upholstery business. The sequence of work is as follows:

We remove the old upholstery by prying the staples with a screwdriver.
We remove batting and old foam rubber; the canvas lining on the base is most likely still quite suitable, unless it is saturated with grease, then it can be removed and washed.
We cut out along the contour of the base with the release of 5-10% pieces of foam rubber of 35-40 grade (harder) 40 mm thick and 20-25 grade (softer) 20 mm thick.
We wrap the base with a canvas, fixing it on the underside with a stapler; fan the folds in the corners in one direction.
We put hard foam rubber on the canvas, and soft foam on it; can be fixed with a few drops of PVA.
Cut out a new one on the old upholstery with an allowance of 10-15%.
We fix the new upholstery on the sides with a stapler on the underside, 3-4 staples per side. On the sides, the upholstery is fixed crosswise with the hood, you need to make sure that the pattern does not float. Suddenly it skewed - we tear out the staples with a screwdriver and overtighten.
Form the corners by stretching the fabric, as shown in the figures, fix it with a stapler - you're done!

The backrest is pulled in the same way, but the foam rubber needs one layer of 20 mm and medium hardness, brands 25-30.

Video: example of upholstery of an old chair

Armchair

Pulling the chair is already a more serious matter, you will need to work with spring block and, if it is folding, with a mechanism. In addition to the backrest, the armrests will also need to be fitted.

But what if the upholstered surface borders on the polished one? It is from this border that you need to start the front upholstery: lay it out with the wrong side up, fix it with a stapler and turn it back onto your face so that the fold comes out. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Disassembly and mechanism

Dismantling the chair begins with the removal of the pillows; in the folding chair, after that, the mechanism will be visible, it needs to be photographed in order to assemble it correctly later. Then we remove the sidewalls, they can be pulled apart tightly. It is impossible to "tear" the sidewalls: the pins-sliders of the mechanism may break; can be pry on without much effort with a nail, pry bar or crowbar.

Spring block

After removing the old upholstery, you need to straighten the block frame; the sight of him being taken out of the chair, in which one can still sit, is sometimes simply amazing. Straighten with two pliers on the weight in several presses, avoiding unnecessary bending of the wire. Then the springs rule in the same way - their tops must form a single plane and not be skewed; most often the middle springs need to be straightened. Editing is easier to do without removing the block from the base; its bottom is very rarely deformed.

Note: You will have to completely remove the block if the felt lining under it is beaten by moths: this is her favorite nest. In this case, a new lining is made of synthetic felt or overcoat cloth in two layers.

Then the block is strapped and shrunk. At the factory, a new block is tied with a net or criss-cross straps, but at home, jute twine is best for this, see fig. Its branches in the centers of the springs are tied with straight knots and the block is seated at 1/5 of the height of the springs.

A uniform shrinkage of the old block can be achieved by using wallpaper nails or pushpins-fungi: they are not hammered to the end, but 2-3 turns of twine are thrown onto the rod. Pulling-loosening its branches and seat the block until smooth. But do not hammer nails / buttons into the end or underside - this will quickly rub the entire upholstery! Only at the top of the foundation!

After finishing the shrinkage, the nails / buttons are driven in until the edges of the caps are sunk into the wood, and the twine tails are cut off.

Sheathing

We start the trim from the seat. Having finished it (see below), put it in place and mark its outline with a marker on the back and sidewalls. What for? In order not to bring the soft lining under the front upholstery of the back and armrests to this line by 30-40 mm, otherwise the seat will not be pushed into place, and the chair will not be folded / assembled.

We put a cover on the block, canvas or burlap. The vertical corners will have to be cut from the inside out and stitched - the fabric drawing cannot be done here anymore. Sew with a sail seam - the upholstery works in concert with the block, and the whole chair will be distorted from the unfolded seam.

The next layer is a synthetic winterizer 10-20 mm thick along the contour of the seat with a release of 10%. Twine tying is also made on it, but it is pulled loosely, if only the twine cuts into the corners of the mat. Further - two layers of foam rubber, the same as on the chair, and front paneling with trimming and stitching of corners from the wrong side; face cutting is done as before with a margin of 10-15% for the hood.

The face is applied in two stages: first, without trimming and stitching the corners, it is pulled in place, temporarily fixing with buttons. Having achieved the correct fit, mark the lines of the corners with a tailor's chalk. Next, the cover is removed, trimmed and the corners are stitched from the inside out, turned inside out, put on and secured with a stapler.

This is the most painful part of the work for a beginner: the disgusting rag from the corners is leading and leading, so cutting corners must be done with a margin. It is even better to work in three stages: sew the corners without trimming, fasten it temporarily and trim it completely, only having achieved the correct fit.

The armrests are trimmed like the back of a chair; on top you can add soft foam rubber. But the back is sheathed in two ways: if it is spring-loaded, then like a chair seat, and if not, like a chair seat, with double foam rubber.

Video: a full cycle of repairing an old chair

Sofa

A sofa is an armchair stretched in width with a drawer, so the sofa repair has only two features:

The spring blocks of the pillows are first seated separately by 1/10 of the height, and then all together by another 1/10; accordingly, you will need two strapping.
It is better to additionally reinforce the box from the underside with two diagonal beams or metal corners.

Note- joke or seriously, who knows: suddenly it turns out that the old strapping of blocks and inner covers are made of whalebone (sort of like from strips of flexible plastic) - consider that you have removed the jackpot in the lottery or found a treasure. Hunting for whales has long been completely banned, and the smooth whales, from which this very mustache was caught, seems to have been completely knocked out. Therefore, incredible amounts are given for a whale whisker, unless, of course, the buyer is a crook.

Assembly

Assembling furniture, if you have already disassembled it without turning it into firewood, will not present any difficulties, especially if you guessed to photograph the disassembly in stages. Here are just four tips:

Save and reuse the old fasteners or completely replace them with new ones: the furniture on the fasteners does not hold up well afterwards.
Take self-tapping screws instead of screws phosphated (black), they hold well in the tree without landing on glue.
Replace Silumin threaded sockets for screws with modern brass or propylene ones with a metal insert.
Do not be alarmed if the chair or sofa unfolds / folds slightly with the new upholstery. "Pump" a few times - it will go, how cute.

Outcome

Do-it-yourself furniture restoration is a difficult and painstaking task, but rewarding. After restoration, old furniture can serve for a very long time. It creates coziness, warm-hearted, friendly atmosphere in the house and acquires great value. Restoration of old furniture is feasible at home.