Custom Restoration and Inspiration for Your Antiquing Expeditions

If you’ve returned from your latest round of antiquing with a trove of furniture in need of custom restoration, you can find CustomMade artisans ready to complete any custom repair services your treasures may require.

But what if what you found needs to be re-imagined in an original design, or if all you found was inspiration?  Our custom furniture makers can work with that, too.  Take a look at some of the finds CustomMade artisans have restored and well as some new works they’ve created inspired by visits to antique stores.

Sometimes makers can be moved to preserve the story of an antique as much as the furniture itself.  A customer purchased this set of antique French Provencal chairs in a Parisian flea market and brought them for restoration to Joel Shepard Furniture.  Professional appraisers estimated their age to be early 19th/late 18th century.  The chairs were in very bad shape.

Antique French Provencal Chairs Restored by Joel Shepard Furniture at CustomMade.com

Joel recounts in his blog what transpired when the estimate for their restoration came in:

The cost for restoring them as a set was more than anticipated so I was asked if they could be taken apart and a couple of sound chairs be made from the parts and toss the rest.  As a set, they told a story.  As a couple of random chairs they were just cute.  Not wanting to break up the story, I bought them all for the price paid in Paris.

Joel has started the slow and delicate restoration process, one that will preserve the story, and has documented his progress in his blog.  Contact Joel if you have antique furniture in need of painstaking custom restoration.  (Just don’t ask him to ruin a good story).

What’s the story behind this squirrel? Joel Shepard tells you as he recounts his restoration of these antique French Provencal chairs. Joel Shepard Furniture at CustomMade.com.

A customer approached Schmitt Custom Furniture with three Gothic-style panels discovered at an antique store.  The treasured finds were repurposed in a one-of-a-kind oak cabinet with antique doors.  “There is much more to this story,” writes Peter Schmitt.  Contact him for the full story or to have your own antiques preserved.

Oak Cabinet with Antique Doors by Schmitt Custom Furniture at CustomMade.com

What can happen when CustomMade makers go antiquing?

“The ultimate party starter,” the iPod jukebox liquor cabinet by Kevin Mack Fine Furniture is a new and inventive piece in a mid-century modern style that was inspired by a television from an antique store.  Read all about this unique creation and listen to Kevin discuss his work in this post from our blog archives and contact Kevin for innovative furniture designs that can bridge decades, styles, and functions and will last for generations.

iPod Jukebox Liquor Cabinet by Kevin Mack Fine Furniture at CustomMade.com

A pre-WWI crate that artisan Andrew Yoder of The Chicago Bench Co. found in a Michigan antique store inspired these tea boxes.  Andrew can create these tea boxes from air-dried cypress or reclaimed Douglas fir, and they can be used to store tea, spices, china, silverware, and even small quilts.  Check out the glowing reviews and recommendations The Chicago Bench Co. has received and then contact the artisan for your own custom tea box or other antique-inspired creation.

Tea Boxes by The Chicago Bench Co. at CustomMade.com

Whether your sorties into flea markets and antique stores have left you with a need for custom restoration services or an inspiration that needs expression, post your furniture challenge on the CustomMade “Get it Made” project board and have artisans interested in your project contact you.