restoring furniture Archives - Chippendale School of Furniture

Learning the skilled techniques of furniture restoration

Restoring the table from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh

A conversation with Simon Macintyre, a specialist tutor in fine furniture restoration who runs his own restoration business in West Sussex in England.

Simon Macintyre is one of the visiting external tutors at the Chippendale International School of Furniture. He teaches the skilled techniques involved in fine furniture restoration for a week in the first term and a second week in the third term.

“Learning about furniture restoration allows the students to relive the experience of furniture making over the last 400 years”, Simon says. “The furniture students learn the principles of good furniture construction and are shown how, unfortunately, style can sometimes triumph over function.

“I love teaching the students here. We all worked on restoring a large round table from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh: this involved various veneer and carcass repairs and laying a large leather top. It’s a steep learning curve but most students rise spectacularly to the challenges and grow demonstrably during the furniture restoration course.

“We’ve also restored chests of drawers, card tables, long case clocks, bureaux and dining room chairs (which tend to take a lot of daily punishment!). The students can be quite reserved initially but they really get into it by the end of the furniture restoration course.”

The dilapidated table before its restoration.

Simon thinks that the “Furniture School works very well. The furniture course has an extremely well structured programme. The students know what to expect each week, and the pastoral care is also good; the students get help with finding accommodation, and Izzy helps them integrate with the local community, encouraging them to go to ceilidhs and other events.”

Simon trained with Anselm Fraser, the furniture school Principal, in 1981-82. His workshop is in the Norfolk Estate’s village joiner’s shop in Arundel. The Duke of Norfolk leads one of England’s best known Catholic dynasties with a lineage going all the way back to 1066 and the Norman Conquest.

Simon works on private furniture restoration commissions as well as for the antique trade. His famous clients have included: rock musician Brian Ferry; the sculptor Philip Jackson, well known for creating seven big bronze bomber crew statues for St James’s Park in London; the Benson family, founders of Kleinwort Benson fame; and the Bonham Carters, who number Hollywood star Helen Bonham Carter.

The furniture restorer’s projects are mostly 17th, 18th and 19th century English furniture, including Chippendale Furniture, although they have also spanned rare Elizabethan and Jacobean furniture. He particularly likes Queen Anne furniture and the simplicity of early Georgian pieces, which he describes as “quintessential English furniture”.

Simon says that “the quality of the materials used for making furniture has fallen steadily over the centuries. Wood which is currently commercially available, might still have the same name, as with ‘mahogany’ for example, but that’s where the similarity ends. I have to source 30 different species of tropical hard woods and veneers, many of which are now protected and commercially unavailable, so have to be continually on the look out for rare hardwoods; I recently managed to track down a trunk of 100 year old rosewood in a garage in the Channel Islands.

“The furniture restoration techniques I use have to be a lot less mechanised than at the school. Most of the restoration work has to be done with high quality hand tools made of decent steel with sharp edges. Modern tools are often sub-standard.

“I work with the original style of the piece and try to get inside the craftsman’s head. Projects often involve repairing damaged veneers and renewing old polish finishes.

“I once restored a case for a bracket clock made by England’s foremost clockmaker, Thomas Tompian, worth a quarter of a million pounds. Another interesting piece was a Guernsey tea table which had been wrecked by occupying German troops during the Second World War.”

Thomas Tompian bracket clock

Returning to his furniture restoration courses at the school, Simon Macintyre says:

“I teach the furniture school students the correct restoration procedures. To avoid devaluing a piece of antique furniture, they need to understand it before starting work. Undoing the poor restoration work done by others is the bane of a furniture restorer’s life; you can find nails or screws in loose joints that have caused a lot of damage, and other poor quality repairs.

“The students learn how to be exacting with their estimates and about the importance of developing good client relationships. They have to learn to consult and talk through issues that emerge. I teach them not to lower their commission prices too much so they can afford to do a good job without cutting corners.

“I give talks on the different furniture styles and features for particular periods. The students get a good grounding of knowledge and go on to learn by experience.

“Many of the students keep in touch with me after I’ve headed back south.”

Simon Macintyre can be contacted at macintyre641@aol.com or on 01903 883387.

Chippendale Furniture student launches business in Chippendale Incubator

David Lonsdale with the ipod stand and desk he made at Chippendale Furniture School

A blog by David Lonsdale a former Chippendale International School of Furniture student who has set up a furniture business in the Chippendale Furniture Incubator.

What sort of work were you doing before becoming a student at the Chippendale International School of Furniture?

I previously worked in sheet metal fabrication for an aerospace company (Midland Aerospace). Working with metal I believe is a good flow through for then working with wood as you need the same attention to detail and very high tolerances especially with aerospace.
I then set up in business in 2004 as Lonsdale Home Improvements doing general DIY, decorating, basic joinery and carpentry. I’ve always enjoyed working with wood and creating something out of nothing!

What were the highlights of your 10 month furniture design course?

I enjoyed being able to work with wood other than pine and MDF! Other highlights were being able to experiment with my own designs and ideas, and having the opportunity to express myself through my designs.
It was interesting having a mix of nationalities and cultures at the School, and seeing how it influences their style and designs.
Which pieces of furniture did you create while you were at the Chippendale School of Furniture?
My first term ‘solid wood’ piece was an olive ash writing bureau with a concealed chair and some secret compartments. This was a more traditional piece which i originally made for myself but actually ended up selling at the School exhibition.
My second term ‘veneer’ piece was an i-pod shelving unit which we now just refer to as ‘the pods’. I wanted to make a modern piece with a funky vibe to it yet still be functional; it is all wired up as an i-pod docking station. You could call this modern art!
Please tell us about the business you have now set up: what are your objectives for the business?
Since finishing the course I have moved up to Scotland with my wife and children and have set up as LR Custom Furniture. I am gradually building a reputable business. I have attended plenty of craft fairs to market the business, products and bespoke furniture making service, and this has proved quite successful.
My aim is to build up the business with a solid reputation for unique, functional and beautiful furniture, kitchens and gifts.
Why did you choose to base yourself in one of the incubator units at the School?
Having not lived in Scotland before and, as I’d moved the family up, it seemed the most sensible option at the time. I wanted to have a solid base to build up my business but still have access to the School for advice and help if needed.

The remarkable iPod stand looks like a piece of modern art!

Could you please describe some of your recent commissions?
Previous commissions have been two oak bookcases. These were built to fit into difficult spaces that no ‘off the shelf’ product suited. Another commission was a modern occasional chair made from sycamore and upholstered by me. This was made for a very lucky lady as her Christmas present!
My most recent commission is a walnut chaise longue. It was made to my customer’s specification but I still managed to put a bit of my own design into it by suggesting storage compartments under the seats and putting it on castors to make it more versatile.

Simon Macintyre- Furniture Restorer

Simon Macintyre is a furniture restorer based in Arundel, West Sussex. He trained with Michael Hay-Will in 1981 (in the same class as Anselm) and set up shop a quarter of a mile down the road, where he has been restoring furniture ever since.
He is also a guest tutor on our cabinet making courses and for those who read our post about the Windsor chair restoration; it was under his expert guidance that it was brought back to its former glory.

And he is clearly not just an excellent furniture restorer, because while most of our students arrive here saying they have little interest in furniture restoration, the vast majority leave saying that furniture restoration is one of their biggest interests. One of last year’s graduates has even gone down South to work with him, so he must be doing something right!

He is a bit more modest. He believes that furniture restoration itself is what captures people’s imagination:

“There is a sense of history and tradition that accompanies restoring furniture,” he says. “You’re holding a piece that might be 300 years old, right in front of you, and you start wondering what the person who made it was like. Who has owned it? Who was the last person to polish it and restore it?”

Furniture Restoration vs Cabinet Making

He says that he understands why people might initially shy away from restoration. Even he started out thinking he wanted to be a cabinet maker, designing furniture. But he slowly came to realise that he had a greater aptitude for furniture restoration. He believes that cabinet making and furniture restoration feed the soul in different ways. “The ability to use a tool is a ‘skill’,” he muses, “whereas the ability to restore furniture is much more about having a ‘feel’.”

And so the pleasure comes not just from the sense of history and tradition, but from the nuts and bolts of revitalising antiques. “You have to imagine what the piece looked like in the past and you try to match that picture with a reality.” For Simon this means problem-solving and dealing with the subtle complexities of colour and patina.

For the Few, Not the Many

However, not everybody thinks the same way… Occasionally Simon will get an antique through the door that has been restored by a cowboy for whom restoration evidently means something completely different: “I do sometimes despair at what some people think it’s all about; trying to do furniture restoration with a pot of glue and a couple of nails is just plain wrong!” But by and large, taking apart history and breathing new life into old furniture is clearly as much a gentle lifestyle as it is a business for this man.

The Bottom Line

And what of the cabinet making? “While I still make the odd bit of furniture,” he says, “it’s not every day that someone walks through your door and orders a 3-piece suite. Restoration work is much more common.”

“But it’s never dull,” he adds. So despite the odd cold, grey, winter morning, he finds himself wanting to get up and go to work. Because even after 27 years on the job, he still finds it interesting, challenging and deeply rewarding.

Wepham Farm Stables
Wepham
Arundel
West Sussex
BN18 9RQ
01903 883387

macintyre641@aol.com

restoring furniture