A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Crucial Home & Design Book for Beginners A Library Journal Best Book of the Year An Amazon Best Book of the Month Christophe Pourny learned the art of furniture restoration in his father’s atelier in the South of France. In this, his first book, he teaches readers everything they need to know about the provenance and history of furniture, as well as how to restore, update, and care for their furniture—from antiques to midcentury pieces, family heirlooms or funky flea-market finds. The heart of the book is an overview of Pourny’s favorite techniques—ceruse, vernis anglais,and water gilding, among many others—with full-color step-by-step photographs to ensure that readers can easily replicate each refinishing technique at home. Pourny brings these techniques to life with a chapter devoted to real-world refinishing projects, from a veneered table to an ebonized desk, a gilt frame to a painted northern European hutch. Rounding out this comprehensive guide is care and maintenance information, including how to properly clean leather, polish hardware, fix a broken leg, and replace felt pads, as well as recipes to make your own wax, shellac, varnish, stain, and more.

A comprehensive, amply illustrated guide illustrates the simple, functional furniture style developed during the Shaker movement--a successful experiment in communitarian living--and traces its evolution from the Colonial styles of New York and New England

Through beautiful photographs and intelligent writing, this fourth volume in the Furniture Studio series reports on the myriad ways that contemporary studio-furniture artists are responding to materials challenges such as the scarcity of exotic timber due to rain forest depletion, the subsequent explorations of the uses of metal, plastic, glass, and stone, and the increase in new functions realized by digital processes. Aiming to bridge the gaps between individual furniture makers, designers, scholars, and consumers, this forum for the discussion of meaning and content through a variety of formats includes an award-winning photographic portfolio by Judy Kenslie McKie, an essay showing how contemporary sculptors use furniture as metaphor, a photo essay on drawing, and a memoir by a leading artist that explains how she broke into new design realms by altering the established rules. Additional exhibition reviews include the furniture art of Roy McMakin, a juried portfolio of student work, and a look at the cutting-edge San Diego school led by Wendy Maruyama.