The following is from a posting on a professional finishing website conversation. Dick, a finisher, took in a job to “clean up” or refinish a piece of furniture. The customer was then unhappy with the cleaner look:

>>" Dear Groop:  I now have it back in my shop to try to make it look old ------ help. Dick"

[Dick may have been heavy handed in his processes, though he said he wasn't, or the piece may have just had a lot of age related marks and coloring that were lost in a normal refinishing. I did not see the piece, so my remarks cover a range of possible issues.]

Dick,

I echo some of the comments already made and have some additional suggestions.

First, and pretty important, is anticipating the customer's expectations. You need to know what your process will likely end up looking like, and check that out with the customer when you are picking it up or discussing it on delivery to your shop, wherever you first see it. They tell you what they want, you do your best to understand, and then you need to shift their expectations if needed or tell them that if they really want "that", they will loose the other thing, or it will look like such and such, and so forth. You both need to work at describing things as best you can and come to agreements at the outset.

I also suggest they change their use habits if I see that the piece has suffered from abuse, both to protect how my fresh surface will perform, and for them to be happy with the look longer. If they use it again like they did when it was a wreck, it will look wrecked again prematurely. Quite often a piece ends up in my shop after a lot of use over a long period of time and the change from before and after can be dramatic. And I may even be doing a "restoration" type job on it, not a "refinish". Customers are thrilled with the change.

Sometimes a collection of dirt, oil, wax, soot, etc., is the only finish on a piece. In this case, cleaning equals stripping, and you need to know this in advance. Do not assume that you and the customer share the same understanding of what words mean. Words such as "clean", "polish", "satin", "sheen", "polyurethane", "french polish", "red", 'mahogany", "antique" etc. You need to grock their feeling of what is acceptable, even desirable; for instance what is acceptible "distress" and what is "damage" that needs repairing.

As for the aging of the "cleaned" surface, you need to practice techniques of adding back some of what you removed. Try to remember what kind of marks there were or shading. After explaining to the customer that it was in fact just "dirt" that you "washed" off, and that you did not "skin" the piece with sanding, ask him to describe what he remembers and what he wants now. You both know that the original muck is gone and you cannot give back the DNA and all the exact gunk that was there! It does not exist in a jar or a film you can just replace. You need to discuss a little bit what you can do for him and see if you can align his expectations with what you can create.

There have already been some good comments about mucking up or "antiquing" a surface. You should practice on a separate piece. Get creative and try to make mistakes. Be sloppy, break rules, screw up, have fun. Use a can to let a dark stain take the shape of a water mark left by a glass (perhaps not the whole circumference). Make dings and dents that will take a glaze left behind after wiping the glaze away selectively. Rub some spots too much, use dark grain filler and leave some behind. Remove parts of some marks with actions that imitate natural rubbing or cleaning motions.

Look at older pieces and see what is there. Be careful not to create a look that will appear faked. Talk to someone who uses faux techniques. Also be careful to have the newly faked surfaces coordinate with the other parts. My guess is that, to look right, you will recreate less muck'n'stuff than was there before, now that the whole piece has been "cleaned" some. It is a challenge to make the surface look natural and not as if someone tried too hard.

One aspect to the art of restoration is to improve the look of a piece without making it look too new. We want the soft sophisticated patina that gentle aging adds to the surface. When abuse or neglect require us to intervene, when "distress" trips over the line and becomes "damage", we must work with sensitivity and try to keep what we can of the aspects of the look of the old that we like. Many techniques and observations are involved in a successful restoration.

It may not feel like it but this is an opportunity to work on all these issues. The customer may end up more pleased than you think when he sees that you have been able to give him back what he thought had been lost. You will have new tools in your bag of tricks. It can be a challenge for all of us sometimes to Think Positively!

Frank MacGruer

Austerlitz,NY