Furniture Restoration and Renovation

I picked this book up when I was starting a furniture restoration store of my own. I think it stood out to me above other similar books because I am a very visual person. Every one of the 144 pages is full color and packed with very clear and easy to understand photographs. It is a very balanced book and starts right by going into what restoration and renovation really mean. Then it spends twelve pages discussing all of the materials and tools you will encounter in doing this work with very clear pictures of everything. It even discusses how to treat your furniture for bugs and how to make your own varnish. Once this thorough background is laid out, the book moves on to furniture work. The project section starts by talking about how to diagnose a piece of furniture and determine what is best to do with it. It gives you the basics of blemish filling, sanding, stripping and staining. The rest of the book contains dozens of step-by-step projects, each incorporating different new techniques or challenges. These are not necessarily meant to be replicated step-by-step, rather it shows how they approached projects, what things they had to consider and the stages of the project. At the same time the book is clearly explaining and illustrating tons of different skills from cleaning wood, repairing damage, upholstery, staining and painting, even removing mildew from wicker. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn the basics of Furniture Restoration & Renovation (like the title says.)