Jan's 
Beautifully refinished antique furniture
 
Above is a corner of my living room with Gramma's beautiful, wooden floor lamp in the middle.
It belonged to my Grandma Nellie Bruns pictured on the right.  
I refinished and rewired it, bought a new lampshade and voila, it looks gorgeous again.
I've also refinished the chair, the rocking chair, coffee table and both end tables.


   
My latest project was snagged from a Monett resident's front yard on 06-04-11 for $45.  It must be a little DRY SINK.  
White paint was slathered everywhere and the paint was seriously cracked.  
Also, one of the doors was missing and the replacement was beyond bad.  
Two of the four wheels were gone, I replaced them with glides.  Above right it's finished and doing its job.

   
I removed the center post in order to make it into a bookcase because I didn't want to use
those horrible doors.  Above two photos show the finished project after two months of tinkering. 
On the bottom left of the ledge was a permanent oil stain that couldn't be taken out so ... it stayed.  

Below is a provenance I wood burn into every piece I refinish. 

I purchased this little coffee table at the Red Barn Antiques in Shell Knob, Missouri on 8-15-09 for $50.  
It's a cute little thing, isn't it?  Too cute to cover w/this obnoxious red paint and call it ... shabby chic.  It's nasty.  
Printed on the underside is the date 6-64.  Not an antique to me ... but nonetheless, it's at least 45 years old and in need of some TLC.
 

And the finished product (11-23-09) pictured above right, better then red, isn't it?

Below is a beautiful oak rocker that's at least 100 years old.
I bought it at a consignment shop north of Shell Knob, Missouri on August 3, 2009, for $85.

It had this horrible plastic tacked over the original and VERY worn burgundy brocade seat, below left.  It's in pieces in the center
and on the right - DONE.  I took it apart, stripped and repaired it, wood burned a little something on the side of the wooden seat 
and applied an applique on the side down-posts toward the front of the chair.  It's very sturdy now and looks as gorgeous as oak can look.
      

One of my favorite pieces is the little chair below.

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Above left is my little oak spindle chair, purchased for $12 from a Tea, SD antique shop in June, 2008 and refinished in July.  The poor thing had a very warped plywood seat and the veneer on the front part of the backrest was gone although I can't imagine how that could possibly happen.  The chair was wobbly, worn and weathered to where the wood actually had a yellow/greenish hue and the poor thing had no varnish whatsoever.  After sanding down two of the legs only slightly, it was level, good as new and all joints were solid.  

   
Of course I threw the plywood seat away and replaced it with a hand-tooled leather seat.  I haven't done that in more than 25 years but kept my tools which worked out well.  Above left is the chair down to its bare bones.  Middle is the leather seat after tooling the design and before staining.  Notice that within the design I tooled "JK" on the left and the " '08" on the right.  (Gotta make my mark.)  Surprisingly enough, the chair is much more comfortable then it was when I tested it in the antique shop because leather has "give" and of course plywood doesn't.  

After tooling, staining and finishing the leather I cut it to the approximate size, glued it to the chair using every clamp I owned then trimmed off the small amount of excess leather with a finishing sander.  My niece Christy said I had some major "clamp action" going on.  The oak veneer on the front of the backrest came from VanDykes Restorers in Mitchell, SD and was easy to apply.  Fortunately the veneer on the back side was in perfect shape so that was one less thing to do.  

The dresser pictured below, and the chair pictured below that, were purchased at Broadway Antiques in Fargo, ND in November, 2007 
and completely refinished by June 18, 2008 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where I lived from 2004 to 2009. 

The dresser had this faux tiger oak finish when I bought it but it was actually painted to look like oak.  What was underneath?
 A solid  MAPLE dresser.  Below left is the dresser before I started working on it and on the right - completely stripped.
   
Below left shows a beautiful maple dresser finished.  I added wheels, repaired the harp which was completely split on the left.  It has all new drawer bottoms and handles.  I also wood burned and painted a little decoration on the backt, the ONLY part that wasn't maple, it was pine for some odd reason.

  
   
When I saw the chair (below) was amongst the non-sellable items in the basement at Broadway Antiques in Fargo, ND.
The chair looked incredibly sad sitting there and was exactly what I'd been looking for so I grabbed it, 
brought it to the register and paid for both the chair ($5) and the maple dresser above ($100). 

On the left, the chair when I first saw it and beginning the process by taking off the upholstery and checking for repair work.  
Middle picture is the fabric used under the chair.  Nice match, huh?  
On the right is the old skin and yes, the picture is upside down because it's laying on my bench.
 

On the left below, a split in the wood needs to be glued, middle is after the stripping, staining and several coats of polyurethane are applied.
On the right is the new skin placed initially over springs and back before putting padding and upholstery on the chair.
   

The little appliqué on the left armrest is from one of six introduction cards Gramma had saved from the 20s or 30s. (my guess)
The flowered piece was barely glued on one side over a rectangular card w/a name underneath.  These little cards
were so cute and I've been saving them for years wondering what to do with them.  Before applying the polyurethane I 
thought of these cards and to my surprise, the decorative top of one of them fit perfectly on the arm rest.
A foot stool  (purchased at Hobby Lobby)  makes it look a little more elegant and the doily is a nice touch as an antimacassar.

     
Left is before anything is done, middle is stripped and sanded.  On the right I put color on the flower and laid the seat in place.
The seat isn't attached yet of course, the piece needs to be stained and finished first.  The second shelf for the phone book hasn't been attached yet either.

   
Above left is the usual information I wood burn somewhere on everything I refinish.  Middle is a close-up of the flowered back and right is finished piece.    
The above seat is a Gossip Bench and was used as the only place in the home for the phone when there was only one phone.
My sister bought the bench at an auction about 15 years ago for $25.  It sat in her back porch until last year when I finally talked her out of it.

Above is the little cabinet I bought on Ebay, it only stands about 24" high and was a metal-lined humidor.
The metal interior was battered, so of course I threw that away.  The wood has a beautiful grain.

Above: this secretary was not much more than kindling in a Fargo, ND antique shop, leaning against the back door and ready for the garbage. 
The back had warped away from the piece, the sides were so dry they had split apart as you can see in the center photo, 
the bottom doors were gone, shelves missing, no mirror.  It was totally trashed and perfect for me.  
This secretary was the MOST fun project to complete and took several months.  
All knobs and pulls were replaced with brass, a new shelf, new wood around the pull-down door, a new back and added appliqués.

A 42" dining room table was given to me by my brothers. Modern had used it for his art projects and was going to throw it away but Ricky said, 
"Wait! Let's give it to Jan and see what she wants to do with it and if she doesn't want it, she can throw it away."  
The most fun was seeing the look on their faces when they first saw the finished product.  
I already had four chairs that matched the table perfectly so that worked out well.

The highboy dresser is a man's and the woman's dresser is the lower wider one. The above left photo shows both dressers before I did anything.  Above right photo shows only the highboy with the hardware removed and stripped.  Both dressers were without their mirrors.   All knobs were removed and replaced by wooden pulls except for the top drawers.  The oak escutcheons (the pieces that go around the keyholes) were also oak and purchased in Fargo.  Everything matched perfectly.  The highboy had glue or perhaps clear nail polish spilled on the top. Stripper didn't budge it so it had to be scraped off with a putty knife then eventually sanded down.

Me with my gorgeous dressers that turned out even better then I'd imagined.  
When I left South Dakota for Missouri, I gave these to my little brother.  He found them for me
in the first place so my plan was to give them to him and Carlotta for their new Glyndon home.

I found a old and extremely dry stanchion (harp) for a highboy dresser in a Moorhead, MN
antique shop and bought it for $20. I already had an old mirror so I cut it to fit and used it. 

Below: Refinished stanchion w/mirror on the dresser, the two look like they'd been together since its beginning.

The dresser below on the left was found in my x-husband's father's garage without the mirror & frame which I found later in another part of the house.  Back in the 1950s Charley's sister had removed the mirror, painted it blue and hung it in her bedroom where it stayed for years.  The little cabinet (below right) was purchased in Las Cruces, New Mexico about 1994 and refinished in Kansas, where I lived at the time before moving to Las Cruces in 1995.  And the kitty in this photo is Frank, a black/white shorthair.

The little cabinet below left was purchased in a Wichita antique shop and refinished in Kansas, the TV stand on the right was purchased and refinished in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I had a friend saw 7" the legs to make it the height of a TV stand.  You can't see it but there was contact paper pasted in the front panels.  It looked like it may have been in a baby's room which would explain why it was white.
(The cat  lower right is Boo kitty) 

Below left is a rocker I found in my ex-husband's dad's garage, it was completely trashed.  I refinished it, repositioned the back spindles because three were missing, inlaid hand-tooled leather in the top back and added a new stool to give the chair company.  

The bookcase (center) was from a kitchen assembly and took me the entire 1993 summer to refinish.  It was loaded with problems.  I crocheted the curtains that say JCK on the left and 1993 on the right.  

Below right is what I believe to be the trunk carried from Norway to the USA by my father's mother's mother in 1885 when she immigrated with her two sisters.  Wooden pegs were used, no nails.  The hardware is definitely nineteenth century and the inside pull to the lid compartment is leather.  When I stripped off the greenish burgundy paint that was on the trunk when I first got it, I could see there was lettering on the bare wood.  Wish I could've saved or even just read it but stripper takes it all.  The trunk weighs about 10 pounds.

This was my woodshop/garage when I lived on Klondike Trail in Sioux Falls, South Dakota (2004-2009).

Designed over the years by me, Jan Koski
2011

to the ladies of the Old West