How do you balance hope with realism?
When you walk into a fire- and/or water-damaged home, you want to reassure the home owner. Yet you don’t want to give them unrealistic expectations about repairing their antiques, heirlooms, and favorite furniture pieces. How do you train yourself to look beyond the soot and mildew, and see an item’s restoration potential?
This article can offer you some insight into how to answer:
Mumford Restoration is a specialty contents restorer with over forty years of experience repairing and refinishing specialty items that have been damaged in fires and floods. This includes heirlooms, antiques, collectables, clocks, art, etc.
If you haven’t read the first part of this blog series for restoration companies who frequently encounter fire- and/or water-damaged antiques, heirlooms, and collectables, go back and read it now!
‘Tis But a Scratch
The types of fire and water damage below might look shocking, but they can all be repaired! Remember—antique furniture was intended to be reglued and refinished from time to time. Their makers engineered them from the very beginning to be taken apart, repaired, relacquered, etc. The fire or water damage might have just sped the repair lifecycle up a bit, but they can often spring back from the damage!
The main salvation of antique or good vintage furniture is their use of real wood. It doesn’t even have to be fancy, expensive wood. Humble ash can be repaired right alongside expensive mahogany. And a piece doesn’t have to weigh 200 pounds to be “good.” Some wood is less dense than others, but it is nevertheless strong and reliable.
Split Wood
Water or extreme temperatures can cause wood to split, as the fibers swell or contract. But the benefit of using real wood in furniture is that the wood has a strong, fibrous structure. Once you remove the furniture from an extreme environment and allow it to dry or come to a comfortable temperature, it’s ready to recover.
When Mumford Restoration encounters split wood, we examine the piece for any signs of warping. We’ll discuss treatment for warped furniture a bit later. After we either treat the warping or determine that it isn’t present at all, we can glue the split pieces back. The glue is able to sink into the fibers and pores of the 2 split pieces, and form a strong bond between the two.
If the piece of wood is large enough to accommodate an additional safeguard, we will insert a strong wooden dowel or a fillet between the two pieces as extra insurance. With the glue and the dowel or fillet, the break then becomes incredibly strong.
Then, Mumford’s artisans can either then refinish the piece or make a small touchup to correct any evidence of the old split.
Warped Wood
Just like split wood, warping results from water damage or temperature extremes. When Mumford Restoration encounters warped wood, we inspect the piece to determine how much warping is present
We have several tools to treat warping. Our approach ranges from sanding delicate areas by hand to using a planer to remove more considerable warped material. We can even replace warped joints with fresh new joints made from an appropriate species of wood.
Burnt Wood
It may only seem as if furniture is a total loss when you see it charred black.
Don't assume the worst!
Mumford Restoration can inspect the furniture and test to see how deep the charring goes. Often, burn marks are mostly superficial and the wood underneath is still unaffected. In such a case, Mumford Restoration will sand the charred areas to reveal the unaffected wood underneath.
We can then refinish the item to resemble its original state as much as possible.
After we refinish a fire-damaged piece of furniture, the owner often cannot tell their item was ever in a fire. Even when something has seemed charred beyond recognition, we’ve been able to work miracles.
This chest is just one example of how we’ve pulled items back from the brink! In spite of a fire so severe it melted the home’s refrigerator, we were still able to save many of the homeowner’s sentimental items.
Unglued joints
Heat and water from a fire or flood can swell or contract the areas of wood that glue need to adhere to. This movement breaks the bond between the wood and glue. That’s why you often see separating joints and peeling veneer after a flood or fire.
Mumford Restoration disassembles furniture whose joints are already separating, thoroughly cleans the joints, ensures that they fit together properly, and then reglues them.
Warped, Detached, or Burnt Veneer
If you notice that a thin sheet of wood is pulling away from a piece of furniture, you’re probably just seeing the veneer peeling off.
For many years, furniture makers used veneers to adorn furniture. Veneer is made from beautiful and often
If the veneer is badly separated, we will finish removing it, clean any residual glue off of both the veneer and the wood that it attaches to, and then reglue it.
When an entire sheet of veneer separates, it is particularly important to contact an experienced antique restorer. Reattaching an entire sheet of veneer has to be done very meticulously to prevent trapping air pockets between the glue and the underside of the veneer. These air pockets will create bulges that will be both unsightly, prone to splitting in the future, and dangerous to set vases and candles on(as the uneven surface may cause them to tip).
When a veneer is too badly damaged to reattach, we source a veneer in the same type of wood with a similar color and grain pattern. Depending on how much of the veneer is damaged, we can replace either a portion of the veneer or all of it. We will stain and finish it to match the surrounding veneer and camouflage any areas of transition between the old and new veneer.
Below, you'll see a veer patch, in which only a small portion of veneer was damaged. It was replaced with similar wood and touched up to match the original veneer.
Destroyed Upholstery
Upholstery can be replaced, but the greater question is what is the quality and state of the chair or couch frame? New
Is the frame made out of solid wood or engineered wood? Engineered wood elements will delaminate or disintegrate when they are exposed to water. Your structure will be severely unstable and can’t be salvaged. Meanwhile, solid wood can be reglued, reinforced, and returned to service.
Antique and vintage couches and chairs typically have solid wood frames and can usually be restored.
Modern, mass-produced furniture, especially pieces made since the 1990s, often contains engineered wood and become structurally unsound after water exposure.
Smoke-Smell in Upholstery
If a couch, chair, or upholstered piece was not exposed to water, but has picked up a strong smoke smell, it can generally be deodorized.
After vacuuming the piece, Mumford places it into a contained space with equipment designed to remove odors.
After one or more days in the space, the smell will be neutralized.
Hit the Road, Jack
The Major Questions
It’s wonderful to reassure a home owner that their antiques and beloved pieces can be saved! But what happens when a piece is beyond anyone’s help? Can you look at a piece and decide, “It’s gotta go.”?
Are there certain materials that just can’t be repaired?
What makes them unsuitable?
And what’s the difference between solid wood and that "engineered" wood we’ve mentioned several times already?
The Basics
Engineered wood relies on glue and resin as an adhesive to maintain its shape. Once the wood swells, it destroys the surrounding resin and essentially returns to its original form, whether that was sawdust, wood chips, or larger shard-like pieces of wood.
Solid wood doesn’t rely on adhesive to hold its particles together. The grain and natural texture of the wood hold it in a solid piece. Solid wood only relies on adhesive in joints—where it is inserted into another solid piece of wood to build a structure.
Medium-Density Fiberboard (MDF)
MDF has no grain, so it doesn’t have any kind of a texture that will allow it to adhere. The wood particulates swell, break apart the resin, and the piece disintegrates.
When you look at the underside of a piece, you’ll notice that the unfinished surface doesn’t have any wood grain. Instead, it looks like a very compressed cardboard box.
Particleboard/Chipboard
Particleboard (aka chipboard) is similar to MDF, except the wood pieces are larger chips of wood—hence the name chipboard. Like MDF, these pieces adhere together thanks to resin. And also like MDF, particleboard swells and breaks apart the resin when it is exposed to water.
When you look at an unfinished surface (on the bottom of the feet or the unfinished side of a drawer), it will look like a cross section of an apple pie or a Butterfinger candy bar, albeit less appetizing.
Oriented Strandboard (OSB)
Oriented Strandboard (OSB) is similar to Particleboard or Chipboard, but the chips used are much longer. You’ve probably seen these in wall sheathing and underfloors. In furniture, these have become very common in sofa frames. Like other engineered wood, it swells and becomes unstable when it comes into contact with water.
Is there any hope for engineered wood?
If a customer is extremely attached to a piece of engineered wood furniture, it is possible to make slight repairs. However, we would advise you to discuss the nature of engineered wood with the home owner and persuade them to let the piece go.
If the insured is adamant, the only real solution to weakening engineered wood is attempting to add more glue to the
Because manufactured wood was originally steamed and pressed into a smooth sheet, sanding will not have the same effect as large scale industrial production methods. We will do our best to sand, seal, and finish the surface to make it as smooth and even as possible, there may still be a noticeable difference.
Learning to See Value and Potential
Furniture is more complicated than it seems, but we hope we’ve given you some insight into how you can confidently approach fire-damaged and/or water-damaged items and cherished pieces.
If you find yourself at a fire or water incident with a customer who is especially emotional over their prized items, we're a text, phone call, or email away. You can even send pictures and we'll be happy to provide you with our expert advice as quickly as possible to help to reassure your client, bringing them some hope in the midst of their tragedy.
You should always rely on a specialty contents restoration company like Mumford Restoration to help you make the most informed decisions. However, we know how much a homeowner appreciates gaining some peace of mind in the moment.
This list is meant to inspire hope and show you that well made furniture is stronger than you think!
Don’t give up on potentially great furniture before you talk to Mumford Restoration!
We can help you and your home owner make the best decision to give the insured peace of mind and help you allocate funds most effectively.
Call us at 919-510-6310 to chat with a consultant or submit an inquiry using our online form below.