Tag Archives: B&T Upholstery

Brown-Saltman Desk And Chair Completed

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Hepcats Haven

This set was in pretty rough shape!

You might remember me blogging about this desk sometime back. Our friend Vic allowed us to buy it because she wanted it to be restored. Though this set needed a lot of work, it had to be done. Brown-Saltman pieces are hard to come by and deserve every chance at becoming new again. The first thing I had to deal with was the re-veneer of the top of the desk and drawer fronts.

The top had burns, water damage, stains and chunks of wood missing.

Since the surface of this desk had wood loss in some areas, I had to fill it before I re-veneered it. You might be saying what should I use for a filler…….Bondo. This stuff is a great filler for projects like these.

Here are the pieces with bondo applied and drying in the sun. Once the bondo is dry I will sand it flush with the surrounding surfaces.

The next step is to rough cut the veneer with excess to allow for trimming and adjustments. Once you apply the veneer glue to the under surface of the veneer and the surface of the desk and those surfaces come in contact, you will not be able to separate them again.

Here is an example of a process used when applying veneer. This is a great help to make sure a good fit. (click)

Once I applied the new veneer I trimmed off the excess and light sanded the edge and all surfaces to prepare for stain.

Next step is to apply the Heywood Wakefield champagne stain. The original look of these desks had a pickled finish. I am not too keen on that finish so I changed it up!

After 4 coats of the Heywood Wakefield stain the desk was ready for re-assembly.

Here they are drying in the late afternoon sun.

The chair was refinished the same way as the rest of the desk, once it was done I sent it over to Bill at B&T Upholstery to recover it in some fantastic teal frieze fabric, similar to the upholstery on our famous pink wing chair. Here are the results:

All I can say is WOW! Thanks Bill, it looks great!

Now with the chair done and the desk re-assembled it, is now time to move it into our bedroom so Mel has a work station when she needs to work. We are pleased with the final results and will enjoy this piece for years to come.

As you can see, we had a piece of glass cut for the top to safeguard it from damage.

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Posted in Restorations, The Makin's Of Our Pad and tagged B&T Upholstery, danish, Desk, eames, Eichler, Help Desk, Heywood-Wakefield, Heywood-Wakefield Company, knoll, MCM, Mel, mid century, retro, Surface, vintage, wood veneer. Bookmark the permalink.

Radio by Hoffman, Cabinet by Brown-Saltman

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Hepcats Haven

I really like the simple lines on this unit.

Mel and I hit Second Sunday last weekend and didn’t find much till we stumbled across this great unit our friend Dennis was selling. He works in construction and said he got this out of one of those big houses in S.F., he said it was in the basement and he purchased it from the original owner. I liked the cabinet and the look of the unit a lot but we went crazy for it when I noticed a small stencil next to the record player it said…

The mark of quality

I have been wanting one of these fold out units for a long time and this was the perfect set up.

Tell me that isn’t cool!

This unit is known as a Hoffman B1000 and was produced in 1947 by Hoffman Radio Corp.; Los Angeles, California. It’s has broadcast bands plus 2 Short Wave bands. It has a record player on the opposite side.

The cabinet will need to be refinished. There are many scratches and scuffs from years of use. This radio appears to be complete with all the knobs and parts. The fabric on the front seems to be in great shape.

I need to find replacement water slide stencils to replace the ones that are rubbed off.

I will need to get this over to Louis at Stereo Advisor to get it running well again. It looks like it has sat for a while. This unit will look great with our Brown-Saltman desk and chair that I am almost done refinishing (Thanks Vic!). The chair is over at Bill’s from B&T Upholstery getting redone. Once it is complete I will make sure to blog about it. We are excited to see how it will all turn out.

Heywood Wakefield Vanity Stool and Queen Bed Resto

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Hepcats Haven

It is all done, that’s right the bedroom set is finally complete. I refinished the stool base and dropped it off to Bill at B&T Upholstery with some really cool retro frieze fabric Mel and I picked up on Ebay.

Here it is before its transformation

B&T Upholstery did another great job!

It looks great!

As I mentioned in the title above I managed to refinish the Queen size headboard and foot board for our bed in the Heywood Wakefield champagne finish. I am trying to sell our other bed so I can put this bed up. Here are some pics of its resto:

The finish on this bed frame was not in the best shape so that I why I refinished it. This is a dog bone bed frame by Heywood Wakefield. I prefer it more than the Rio style bed frame.

Here is the frame all sanded down. I have refinished a lot of HW pieces but the old finish on this bed frame was on there like glue!

Here is the foot board after the first staining. It is amazing to watch the transformation between the coats. I put a total of 4 coats to achieve the final finish. Remember to check out Jeff on Ebay to pick up your stain, it is an easy process to refinish any piece.