If you have a child whose teeth appear all over the place, do you swap it for a new child? No, you fix the teeth. If you have a wall that is covered in scuffs, do you move house? No, you fill and re-paint. If you have a table that is scratched or stained, do you chuck it and buy a new one? The answer is yes, a lot of us do, and landfill sites are now stuffed with furniture we have thrown out to buy new.
We all have the choice, to restore or to buy new; but if we seriously want to reduce the waste our society creates then we should look at our furniture first, rather than getting a ‘feel good’ factor from re-using carrier bags. It may cost almost as much to restore an old piece as to buy new, but there are advantages. We are not creating unnecessary waste; we end up with a much better quality piece of furniture, with proper glued joints made out of well-seasoned wood rather than just stapled or screwed ‘joins’ made out of chipboard; and we have far more choice as to the final finish of the piece than we do buying ‘off the peg’ The process of re-using old wood and natural fillings such as horsehair for upholstered furniture involves practically no carbon footprint, unlike the process of harvesting and drying new timber, and manufacturing synthetic fillings
If the size of a piece of furniture does not fit our home, then the answer is to sell it, but if it fits in, but is damaged or simply dingy, then, for the sake of the planet, and the history of British furniture, we should consider restoration before rushing down to the skip with it.

Top Ten Do’s and Don’ts for furniture preservation from Bentley & Clive

Do:

1. Save any veneers/mouldings/handles etc that come off and tape them securely to the inside or back of the piece. This will save money in restoration.
2. Make up fresh wood reviver using meths/genuine turpentine/raw linseed oil in equal proportions and rub this into your wood furniture to clean and feed the wood. This will be no good on varnished furniture which reviver cannot penetrate.
3. Check your furniture regularly for woodworm. Holes that appear ‘white’ and give off dust are live and must be treated.
4. Hang onto any horsehair furniture you are lucky enough to own, and get it re-upholstered if necessary. Horsehair filling is very expensive to buy new, exempt from fire regulations as it is naturally fire resistant (which means you don’t have to scrap it when they change the regulations), natural, washable and incredibly long-lasting.
5. Find a restorer who has been trained in the history of furniture. They can tell you how old the piece is, whether it is rare or valuable, and what restoration should involve.

Don’t:

1. Screw loose joints where the glue has perished. This concentrates the pressure on one small area and will destroy the joint. Glued joints distribute pressure throughout the jointed area.
2. Strip a piece that is antique (i.e. over 100 years old). This ruins the patina and the value of the piece.
3. Use modern glues (e.g.PVU) on old pieces to mend breaks. These are more rigid than the wood and will cause splitting as the wood moves. Use animal glue.
4. Spray woodworm treatment on polished wood. Use a small syringe to inject the holes individually.
5. Use a spray furniture polish containing silicone. This contaminates the wood so that it cannot be re-french polished.

If you wish to discuss anything to do with furniture restoration, you are welcome to call Bentley & Clive in North Yorkshire on 01439 748466.
Rachel Clive, B.A.,Dip.M., OCN Furn. is a founder member of Bentley & Clive, a Friend of the British Antiques Furniture Restoration Association and also writes for their magazine.

THE DISPOSABLE FURNITURE CULTURE


Re-using your carrier bags seems to be a big thing at the moment, but how about re-using your furniture? Landfill sites are stuffed with furniture that people have thrown out to buy new. In many cases upholstered furniture is chucked which has far better made frames than you can buy now, and these frames are in perfectly good condition. The current legal lifespan of a piece of new furniture is three years. After that, it is deemed to have done its job. Just suppose everybody chucks their sofa and armchairs after five years, to buy new. That is 60 million sofas and approximately 120 million armchairs going into the civic amenity sites every five years. The wastage is enormous, and far more bulky than carrier bags. The synthetic fillings used for modern upholstered furniture are not easily biodegradable, and it costs too much to strip them into component parts so the whole thing goes into the crusher, and then into the landfill site. Oil is used to make these synthetic fillings, whereas the old natural fillings, such as horsehair, grasses, straw, and even the modern coir fibre made from coconut fibres, did not require a finite energy source to collect them.

We have recently heard on the news about the law suit against three large furniture manufacturers for importing upholstered furniture from China containing sachets of dimethyl fumarate to stop the filling going mouldy during transit. This has caused severe burns and skin eruptions on the people using these sofas. Why would we want to buy furniture that has to be protected from going mouldy even when brand new? Why would we want to run the risk of severe skin rashes from our upholstered furniture just because it is ‘new’ and ‘cheap’?

We all have a choice, to restore our old furniture, or to chuck it and buy new. However, if we really want to reduce the waste our society creates, we should look at our furniture first, rather than getting the ‘feel good’ factor from re-using carrier bags. It may cost as much to have an old piece re-upholstered as to buy new, but there are advantages. We are not creating unnecessary waste, the re-upholstered piece is likely to last far longer than a ‘new’ piece, the frame is liable to be of much better quality than in a modern piece, with proper joints rather than just stapled together, and we have far more choice as to the fabric and style of the re-upholstered piece than if we just buy it ‘off the peg’.

The same applies to pieces of non-upholstered furniture, which are thrown away because they are dark, or stained, or the glue has perished and the joints are wobbly. Most of these pieces are well made, with proper joints out of well-seasoned wood. Re-finishing can remove scratches and stains and change the colour of the wood according to your taste. Re-gluing the joints creates a far sounder piece of furniture than modern screw-fixed furniture.

If the size or shape of a piece of furniture does not fit our home, then the answer is to sell it, but if it fits in, but is damaged or worn, then, for the sake of the planet, and for the sake of the history of British furniture, we should consider restoration rather than rushing down to the skip with it.

Rachel Clive B.A, Dip.M, O.C.N Furn. is a founder member of Bentley & Clive, a Friend of the British Antiques Furniture Restoration Association and also writes for their magazine.