Guide to repairing and restoring old furniture

Start with a proper assessment

Before you touch a scraper or a tin of stripper, spend a good half hour simply looking at the piece. Old furniture has usually survived a century or more of central heating, damp cellars and clumsy house moves, and the repairs made along the way tell you as much as the original construction. Work in good daylight, on a clean dust sheet, with the piece raised on trestles so you can see the underside and the back — the places where problems hide.

Ask yourself three questions. Is it solid wood or veneered? Is the damage structural or cosmetic? And is the finish original, or has someone already been at it with a brush? That last one matters enormously. A Victorian chest with its original patina is worth far more left alone than stripped back to bare pine, so if the piece is genuinely old and valuable, a sympathetic clean and a wax polish may be all it needs.

• Check the joints — rock the piece gently and listen for creaks; a wobbly leg or a lifting rail means glue has failed.
• Test the finish — a dab of methylated spirits on a hidden spot will soften shellac or French polish, but leave modern lacquer and polyurethane untouched.
• Look for woodworm — fine grit-like dust beneath the piece and small oval holes mean active infestation, which needs treating before anything else.
• Identify the timber — oak, mahogany, walnut, pine and teak all take finishes differently, and pine in particular soaks up stain unevenly.

Repairing joints and structural faults

Loose joints are the most common problem and, fortunately, the most satisfying to fix. If a joint pulls apart cleanly, scrape the old glue off both mating surfaces with a sharp chisel or a knife, then reassemble dry to check the fit. Warm hide glue is traditional and reversible, which matters if a conservator ever works on the piece later, but a good quality PVA wood adhesive is perfectly sound for everyday furniture and far easier for a beginner to handle.

Clamping is where most amateur repairs go wrong. Use enough clamps — you cannot really have too many — and always place a scrap of softwood between the clamp jaw and the work to prevent bruising. Work on a flat surface and check for squareness with a diagonal measurement before the glue sets. If a dowel or tenon has snapped off inside its mortise, drill it out carefully with a bit slightly smaller than the dowel, then re-drill to size. Never force a joint home with a hammer; if it will not close by hand pressure and a gentle clamp, something is still in the way.

Tackling scratches, dents and veneer

Small dents in solid timber can often be raised without any filler at all. Lay a damp cloth over the bruise and press a warm iron onto it for a few seconds at a time. The steam swells the crushed fibres and the dent lifts, sometimes almost entirely. Water rings and dark stains respond well to a weak solution of oxalic acid, applied sparingly and neutralised afterwards with clean water.

Lifting veneer is a different matter and needs patience rather than strength. Warm the area gently with a domestic iron over brown paper, work a little glue underneath with a thin palette knife or a piece of card, then press it down firmly and leave it weighted overnight with a flat board and something heavy on top. Missing chips of veneer are best patched with a piece of matching timber cut slightly larger than the gap, glued in and pared flush once dry — always with the grain running the same way as the surrounding surface.

Removing an old finish

If the existing finish is beyond saving — flaking, blackened, or a thick layer of later varnish hiding decent wood — then stripping is the right call. Chemical stripper is kinder to the timber than aggressive sanding, which is all too easy to overdo and which rounds over crisp edges and mouldings in seconds. Apply the stripper generously, leave it the full recommended time, and lift the softened sludge with a plastic scraper rather than a metal one.

Follow up with a card scraper for flat panels and fine mouldings, then wire wool dipped in methylated spirits to clear the last residue from the grain. If you must sand, work through the grits — 120, then 180, then 240 — and sand with the grain only. Stop as soon as the surface looks even. Over-sanded wood loses its character, and no amount of stain will bring it back.

Applying new protection

Choose your finish for the life the piece will actually lead, not for what looks best in a photograph. A hard-wearing dining table wants several thin coats of an oil-based varnish or a wipe-on polyurethane, while a bedroom chest or a decorative chair will be perfectly happy with Danish oil or a traditional wax over a shellac sealer.

• Oils — Danish and tung oil penetrate and leave a soft, natural sheen; re-oil annually.
• Shellac and French polish — beautiful depth and easily repaired, but vulnerable to heat and alcohol.
• Varnish — tough and water-resistant, though harder to touch up invisibly.
• Wax — the gentlest option, ideal over an existing sound finish, but offers limited protection.

Whatever you choose, apply thin coats, rub back lightly between them with fine wire wool, and give each coat proper drying time. Rushing this stage is the single most common reason a restoration looks amateurish a year later.

Knowing when to stop

The best restorers are, in many ways, the most restrained. Age brings a patina — the softened edges, the darkened corners, the small historic repairs — that no product can replicate and that buyers of period furniture actively seek. Aim to stabilise rather than transform. Keep the piece structurally sound, arrest any decay, feed the timber, and let the marks of its history show through. That is a job well done, and it will outlast any fashionable trend you might be tempted to follow.