Care and Preservation
How to Wax Antique Furniture Without Building Up Grime
A sticky, dull film on an old chest of drawers is almost never age.
Furniture and decorative arts writer
Edmund trained as a cabinet restorer, which gives him an angle most writers miss: he has taken apart enough pieces to know what the construction tells you about the date. He writes about period styles, joinery and how condition grading affects resale.
Care and Preservation
A sticky, dull film on an old chest of drawers is almost never age.
Period Furniture
You have found a spindle-back chair at an estate sale for $180, the seller calls it an antique Windsor chair, and you have...
Care and Preservation
A dull brown candlestick looks neglected, so the instinct is to scrub it bright.
Silver and Metalwork
A pair of candlesticks turns up at a country sale, catalogued simply as "Sheffield plate, c.1800".
Care and Preservation
Turn over almost any oak stool made before 1850 and you will find a scatter of tiny round holes, each one about the width of a...
Prints, Maps and Books
Take the backing board off a print framed in the 1950s and you will often find the same thing: a brown line running exactly...