Empire Sideboard

Hello Everyone!

I was lucky enough to pick up this beauty recently as due to my complete lack of knowledge am not sure how to go about restoring it. I would love to keep it natural wood but I know it is covered in veneer. The veneer is bubbling and cracked off in several spots and I can’t really afford a professional restoration. Is there any way to tell what wood is under the veneer? I hate to rip it all off and have particle board or something that cannot be stained. I just fell in love with its curves and color.
Any advice is greatly appreciated and thank you in advance!

 

An antique piece like that won't have particle board (I don't think it was invented yet). I always thought pine but could be mistaken.

The damage doesn't look that bad. It would be easier in my feeble mind to repair the veneer than strip the entire piece.

 

Your piece was probably made between 1900-20. @verybrad is the guy to talk to about restoration.

 

@Z1ggy16 ........may have some thoughts .........if he sees this !

 

do the dovetails look machined? Real Empire or classical will not have machined uniform dovetails. We are setting up for an estate sale in a couple of weeks and the whole house is golden oak era. This looks like it would fit right in and probably 1930's.

 

Empire revival circa 1910. The wood underneath will be solid but not good wood. It may even be a patchwork of scrap woods. The veneer fixes I see are, mostly, not too difficult. New veneers will not match well so you should try to find some old pieces somewhere. I sometimes harvest veneers from a piece itself. If there are veneers anywhere that do not show, perhaps you can cut some out for your repairs. For example, is the back edge of the top veneered? The patch in the middle of the door will be the hardest to repair. Be sure to find something good and flat that can be loaded with quite a bit of weight to apply pressure when gluing.

 

Well I’m elbows deep in this project now. The veneer had many spots where it was dry and bubbling and when I was inspecting several spots, they cracked right off. So so dry.

I used steam to remove the veneer but then the substrate came away too. Which is fine since it looks like pressed wood or composite. It is tough and slow but I am making progress.

One thought I had (sorry to sound so dumb) is earlier it was mentioned it might not be a “good wood” under the veneer. To me, it looks a little rough because of the glue and sanding that needs to be done but I wonder if I am just wasting my time and have something that I should just paint. Which I would hate to do.

what are your opinions? Good wood? Bad wood? Fool for taking on this project? Comments welcome and thank you for the advice.

 

that does look like nice wood from here...

 

I have no expertise here but I am not young and I have made a lot of mistakes. One of them was attempting to remove veneer from a table because I didn’t know how to fix it. The entire piece was ruined. To my inexperienced eye, the veneer seemed to be only a paper thin, surface only element of the piece. But it isn’t. It has just enough dimension that the whole piece will look peculiar, ill-fitting, disjointed. The substrate will be a grave disappointment. The timber hues will be all over the place, it won’t look at all like it does now. You will not be pleased.
It sounds like you do want the piece, but don’t have the money to pay for veneer repair, nor the inclination to learn. Both are fair points. It also sounds like you have a strong drive to transform this piece, and paint is something you know.
If I am on target here with your thoughts, then I highly recommend you first coat the entire piece with shellac , either clear or amber. Shellac is the best primer, hands down, and it will also protect the wood underneath the paint.
Then, a future owner with restoration skills will be able to strip the paint. If you paint the wood as is right now, the possibility of future restoration goes away.