Joints that have gone loose
A chair that rocks is almost never broken wood. The old glue has let go: the frame comes apart, the tenons are cleaned back to bare timber, and the piece is glued and clamped square again.
Furniture restoration bench
Old furniture put back into daily use
Rohadi Mazraah is a one-person restoration bench. Chairs that rock, drawers that stick, a table top burned through its finish: the piece is looked at, written up with a price before anything is touched, and repaired to be sat on and used again rather than to be looked at behind glass.
What comes onto the bench
Four kinds of repair make up most of the work. A single piece often needs two or three of them, and the estimate says which.
Surfaces and finishes
Water rings, heat marks and worn edges. Where the old finish can be revived it is cleaned and built back up; where it cannot, it is taken off and a new one is laid down by hand, coat after coat.
Parts that are missing
A broken rail, a split leg, a drawer runner worn to nothing. The replacement is cut from timber chosen to match the grain and the colour of what is already there, then fitted so the repair is not the first thing you see.
Veneer and inlay
Thin surface timber lifts, bubbles or chips away at the corners. It is softened, laid back down under pressure, and the gaps are patched with veneer cut to the same shape rather than filled with paste.
How a piece is handled
The same four steps for a single chair and for a cabinet. Nothing is cut, stripped or glued before the second one is finished.
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Photographs first
You send photographs of the whole piece and close-ups of the damage, and describe how it is used. That is enough to say whether the repair is worth doing.
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A written estimate
You receive, in writing, what would be repaired, what would be left alone, roughly how long the bench would need it, and the price. There is no charge for this.
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Bench work
The repair is carried out in the order agreed. If something is found underneath that changes the price, work stops and you are asked before it continues.
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Back to you
The piece is returned with a short note: what was replaced, what was kept, which finish was used on it and how to clean it without taking that finish off again.
What is kept and what is replaced
Restoration is mostly a series of decisions about how little to change. These are the ones that come up on nearly every piece.
- Original timber
- Kept wherever it still does its job, even when it is marked. Age in a surface is not damage, and sanding it away cannot be undone.
- Old hardware
- Hinges, handles and locks are cleaned and refitted. New hardware goes on only when the old is broken beyond use or already gone.
- Previous repairs
- A sound old repair stays. One that is pulling the piece out of square or splitting the timber around it is taken out and done again.
- Finish
- Revived if there is enough of it left. Stripped only when it has failed across the surface, and then replaced with a finish of the same family.
- Loose seats and webbing
- The frame under a seat is repaired and the webbing re-strung. Covering fabric is left to an upholsterer.
- Colour
- Matched to the piece as it is now, not to how it looked when it was new. A new part that is brighter than everything around it reads as a patch.
Asked before the first estimate
If your question is not below, the request page is the place to put it.
Is a piece ever too far gone?
Sometimes, and it is better to be told so. When the cost of the repair would run past what the piece is worth to anyone but you, the estimate says that plainly and you decide.
Will the repair be visible?
A new part is cut and coloured to sit down into the piece rather than stand out from it. Under a strong light and a close look it can usually still be found, and the note that comes back with the piece says where.
Can one small fault be dealt with on its own?
Yes. A single loose joint or one cracked drawer front is a complete job. There is no minimum, and no obligation to have the rest of the piece touched.
How long does an answer take?
Enquiries are read and answered by the same person who would do the work, in writing, one at a time. Nothing is answered automatically.
Have a piece worth keeping?
Send photographs and a line about how it is used. You get a written estimate back, and no work begins until you have accepted it.