I've spent the past several weekends and almost every evening working on restoring an antique chifforobe. I found the piece on Craigslist, it was being sold by a recently retired couple who were downsizing their home. The story has it that they purchased the piece from an antique dealer when they were first married over 40 years ago. On the bottom of one of the drawers, I found a stamp of the original manufacturer: L. Marx & Bros. I did some research and found that Louis Marx operated a mail-order furniture shop across the river from Cincinnati starting in 1888 until around the time of WW1.
When I picked up the chifforobe from the couple, it was in pretty rough shape; the finish was all but gone, the hardware needed to be replaced, the mirror had lost all it's silvering, all the glue had long ago deteriorated and all that was holding the thing together were a handful of cheap metal brackets that the old man had screwed into the corners.
I took everything apart and stacked up the pieces. It looked exactly like a pile of firewood and nothing like an antique chifforobe. Then I started the process of repairing, replacing when necessary, refinishing and then reassembling the piece. I converted the left side wardrobe into shelves and rebuilt every drawer from scratch, only saving the original drawer fronts. The mirror was replaced as well as all the hardware then a fresh coat of stain and polyurethane applied to match my other furniture.
The chifforobe now sits in our newly refinished master bathroom and will be home to our towels, sheets, blankets and toiletries. Below are some pictures I took of it this morning. I wish now that I'd taken a few pics of the work in progress but all I have is the finished item. Enjoy!
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