Kin Furniture Co. Gets a Shout Out on 5280.com!

Liz Bachman, a local interior designer and owner of Grey and Scout was interviewed on 5280.com, our city’s go to magazine and website for all things Denver.

In her interview she was asked if she had a favorite local artisan and her answer was “There are tons of amazing local artisans, but I need to give love to Kin Furniture Co., which makes older, one-of-a-kind pieces beautiful again.”

We are grateful for the love, Liz!

You can see Liz’s work on instagram @greyandscout. She definitely has that eye for clean and modern yet soulful design and we too are big fans.

Antique Pie Crust Style Table Repair

This was a fun project. One where we got to get a little more hands on. For this antique table repair, Jake hand carved new pieces in two sections to match the original construction as best he could.

End result turned out great and you can barely tell there was ever a repair!

Tools and materials used were:

Chisels

Cope saw

Various files and rasps

Carving knives

Dye stain glaze and shellac

We put together a quick video of Jake’s repair process below.

Antique Marquetry Game Table Restoration

A customer brought us this peculiar game table for restoration. We haven’t seen one with this type of build and mechanism before. Highly unique item!

As you can see, the rosewood was deeply sun bleached indicating it must be pretty old. We did a full restoration that included touching up old repairs to the marquetry from a previous restorer. We greatly enjoy these types of projects that allow us to be as detail oriented and careful as possible.

Seeing the end result is always satisfying.

We put together a quick video of the process.

Top 10 Furniture Restoration Projects of 2018

2018 was a big year for us here at Kin Furniture Co.

In May 2018, after stumbling across the perfect warehouse space by accident, we moved our company to Denver CO, and dove head first into growing our business within a new big city. This meant long work hours, immersing ourselves into a new city business network, studying the art of marketing magic, learning to communicate well as both siblings and now business partners (which did not come without hard intentional work!) and of course, engaging in those monthly dreamcasting meetings where we allowed ourselves to dream big while also assessing issues and creating new growth strategies.

We somehow were able to do all this while also keeping up with customer projects!

Here are a few of our favorite furniture restoration projects from 2018.

1. Mid century dresser designed by John Keal.

   We did a full refinish to get rid of the old yellowing finish and surface scratches and polished those groovy brass pulls.

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

2. Pair of mid century teak Danish designed lounge chairs.

We did a full restoration on this pair of danish mid century teak lounge chairs that included replacing the loop springs. See our tutorial video here.

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

3. Art Deco vanity

Here’s another restoration that included a full refinish, polishing of those beautiful orange bakelite knobs and new glass. We believe these art deco vanities will come back on trend within the next few years and hopefully we will see a few more in the shop. Art Deco vanities often vary slightly in their design and some of the more simple ones blend well within both masculine and feminine design environments.

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

4. Mission style quarter sawn oak antique rocker.

Quarter sawn oak furniture is a favorite of ours here at Kin Furniture Co. Our father was a collector of furniture made of this beautiful striped looking wood during our childhood so we are a bit bias. The simple, rectangular angles of the mission furniture style is also pretty hard to dislike in general.

Our restoration included cleaning, re-gluing of the joints, sanding, a good deep oiling to get those ray flecks to shine and new seat cover upholstery in a sleek black leather.

SWOON!

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

5. Massachusetts governor’s chair from 1953.

Ouch! This stately chair was brought to us in need of some immediate medical attention.

These 2 broken legs were restored to the best of our creative ability by our in house break repair medic, Jake. This chair has a bit of a historic story. It was given to the then Governor of Massachusetts, Christian A. Herter, as an inauguration gift in 1953. Happy to see this beauty all stiched up and her history preserved!

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

6. Secretary desk circa 1770’s.

One of the best parts of furniture restoration is having the opportunity to preserve some very old antiques.

Here we did a restoration to this antique secretary desk circa 1770. That's about 250 years old. Our customer brought this family heirloom to us for some repairs due to shrinkage over time. 

We did our best to ensure this antique was repaired properly while also respecting the beauty and character brought by it's old age.

Notice the ink stains in the drawer from the use of an inkwell for writing.

And that 250 year old key is beautiful!

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

7. Solid Maple Dining Table Set

This dining table set refinish project was a stunning transformation. The table top was covered in surface scratches and scrapes and the finish had begun to peel. It had also darkened to a deep yellow over time, which of course wasn’t too pleasing to the eye.

We did a complete refinish on the table and chairs to reveal the true color of that beautiful bright maple. All those surface scratches were sanded away and a new matte coat of finish topped it all off.

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

8. Milo Baughman Credenza

This mid century Milo Baughman credenza repair made it on our list simply due to how beautiful it is.

We did some minor repair and touch up to some chipped veneer.

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

9. Depression Era chest of drawers.

This customer brought us a few family heirloom pieces that belonged to his grandfather. We particularly enjoy projects that involve restoring and preserving the stories held within family heirlooms. We did a full refinish to this handsome dresser and are glad to see it ready for another generation of use.

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

10 - Asian Coffee Table.

We did a complete refinish on this piece. It was in pretty bad shape when it was brought to us. There were quite a few water marks, scratches and what seemed to be a textile imprint.

We got it looking good as new!

Scroll to see the before photos of this project.

On to 2019!