Antique furniture restoration
Antique furniture restoration on the Sunshine Coast
Most people who contact Franz about a piece of furniture are not collectors. They have something from a grandmother, or something that came across an ocean, and it is now wobbling, split, stained or missing a piece — and they do not want to be the generation that let it go.
Franz has restored antique furniture since 1987. He began in Prague with castle furniture and objects from private collections, and he now does the same work from a workshop in West Sechelt, for people across Sechelt, Gibsons, Roberts Creek and Halfmoon Bay.
A chest of drawers, start to finish
What a restoration actually looks like
Wood and period on these pieces are being confirmed with Franz and will be added.
What Franz can do with a damaged piece
Structural repair
Loose and failed joints, split panels, cracked frames, chairs that rock and tables that lean. Making a piece properly sound again, so it can be used rather than admired from a distance.
Veneer, inlay and marquetry
Lifted, bubbled or missing veneer re-laid; damaged inlay patched or replaced to match what is around it. In 1996 Franz restored the inlaid sacristy furniture of Prague's Church of St Nicholas — marquetry is not a sideline for him.
Recarving missing elements
A broken foot, a lost finial, a section of ornament that is simply gone. Franz is a carver as well as a restorer — he can cut a replacement that matches the original rather than approximating it. Not many restorers can do this.
Painted and decorated pieces
Not every antique is bare polished timber. Franz works on painted, decorated and gilded furniture as well — the same skills he uses on church statuary.
Restore it, or preserve it?
That decision is yours, and it is worth making deliberately
An old piece of furniture carries its own history: the patina, the wear at the arms, the colour the finish has taken over a century. Strip that off and you have something that looks new — and often worth less, to a collector and sometimes to the family too.
So Franz will tell you what he thinks the piece needs, what it would cost in character to go further, and what he would do himself. Then you decide together, before anything is stripped. Nobody should discover after the fact that a hundred years of surface has gone.
Other pieces
It is not only antiques
If it is wood and it is broken, it is worth asking
Plenty of the work is not valuable at all — a kitchen chair, a bed frame, a wooden box, a door that has swollen and will not shut. Franz will tell you honestly if a job is not worth the cost of fixing.
Next step
Start with photographs
Photographs are the difference between 'hard to say' and a real answer. Two or three shots of the piece, plus close-ups of the damage, and Franz can usually tell you what is involved before it ever leaves your house. Assessment and quotes are free.