A woman brought in her grandmother’s dressing table with a top that had been stripped, re-stained the wrong colour, and coated with a polyurethane that had gone milky. The carcase was sound, the drawer runners were worn into scallops, one leg had a repaired break, and the mirror was original. Restoring it properly was going to cost more than building a new dressing table of comparable quality. She restored it anyway, and that was the right decision — but it was the right decision for reasons that had nothing to do with the arithmetic, and it is worth being clear about which reasons are which.
Assess the object before quoting anything
Four questions settle most cases. Is the structure sound, meaning are the joints tight or tightenable and is the primary timber free of significant rot or insect damage? Is the surface original, or has it already been stripped and refinished — because an intact original surface carries most of an antique’s value and a stripped one carries very little? Are the significant components present: the original hardware, the mirror, the marble, the key? And is it actually usable at modern dimensions, since a nineteenth-century desk at 28 in high is uncomfortable for a person who works at a screen. An honest assessment takes an hour and costs less than any of the decisions that follow.
Conservation, restoration and refinishing are three different jobs
Conservation stabilises what is there and changes as little as possible, with reversible methods. Restoration returns the object to working condition and appearance, accepting new material where necessary. Refinishing simply replaces the surface, and on a piece with any age or provenance it is the one to think hardest about, because it is irreversible and it is what most often destroys value. The principles behind that hierarchy are set out clearly in the technical literature on building conservation, and the National Park Service preservation briefs are as useful a primer for furniture as they are for buildings: identify significance first, intervene minimally, and make new work distinguishable on close inspection.
What restoration costs and where the hours go
Re-gluing a loose chair frame is a few hours. Replacing worn drawer runners properly, with new hardwood let into the original members rather than screwed over them, is a day per pair on a chest. French polishing a table top is one to two days including the preparation. Veneer repairs, patching lost inlay and matching a two-hundred-year-old colour are specialist bench work priced accordingly. The pattern is that structural repairs are cheap relative to their value and surface work is expensive, which is the opposite of what most people expect. A full restoration on a mid-sized piece commonly lands somewhere between one and four thousand dollars, and it is entirely possible for that to exceed the market value of the object.
When building new is the better answer
If the piece has no personal or historical significance, is structurally compromised, and does not suit how it will be used, restoration is sentiment wearing a practical costume. New work can take the good parts of the old design, use the same species, match the proportions to a modern room, and incorporate the original hardware or a salvaged panel so the lineage survives. That hybrid — a new piece carrying one honest fragment of the old — satisfies most people far better than a restored object that still does not fit the room. The reverse is equally true: where the object carries genuine significance, it should be conserved even when the cost makes no sense on a spreadsheet, because the thing being bought is not furniture.
Frequently asked questions
Does refinishing always destroy an antique’s value? For pieces valued as antiques, an original surface is a large part of the value and stripping it is usually a permanent loss. For ordinary secondhand furniture with no collector market, refinishing costs nothing in value terms.
Can worn parts be replaced without harming authenticity? Yes, and it is normal practice. Convention is that replacement material is documented, and that it is detectable on close examination rather than disguised as original.
Is woodworm in an inherited piece a reason to refuse it? Not automatically. Active infestation needs treating and structurally weakened members need replacing, but old, inactive flight holes in sound timber are cosmetic. Species matters for any new component let into an old piece, and the hardwood comparison is a reasonable starting point for matching.