We’ve been busy lately, thought this blog doesn’t really show it.

Unfortunately, the blog is best for projects that can easily be recapped with a tutorial or a summary of how we did a particular project. Sadly, not all projects are that easy to document in this way.

Take, for instance, refurbishing a 100+ year-old church pew. Or turning a dismantled and partially broken table into a newly redone and totally different table.

And those two projects, unfortunately, are turning into quite the labor of love around here. So, despite the fact that we haven’t really shared much about them yet, you can rest assured we are plugging away at every problem that comes up as we dig into these antique pieces of furniture in an attempt to turn them into something modern and lovely and functional.

So, back to the point of this post—the pew!

It’s currently in the kitchen, and it’s in the last stages of what we originally thought it would take to refinish this guy. Notice I said “what we originally thought,” because yup, we found some more issues.

We’ll do a full recap of this later on, but for now, I’m going to just tell you the basics and the additional projects we uncovered.

When we started, we knew we needed to reattach and smooth over a broken top piece of the arm rest on one side.

We also needed to create and attach a broken off (and missing) bottom piece of the arm rest on the other side. (It’s 100+ years old–it had some wear and tear and needed a little TLC!)

Since then, we’ve almost completed both of those steps. Hubs is in the final stages of adding wood putty and smoothing out the seam where he added the new end piece of the arm rest. (Which he made by hand to match the other side.)

We also decided to go ahead and add some screws to offer extra assurance that the pew would be nice and sturdy for many years of use to come.

Wyatt added a few to each side, securing the back and seat to the sides. (There were already SEVERAL nails in there, but new screws would offer a bit more stability and peace of mind. (Keep in mind, this was built back in the days of handmade, square-headed nails, which are awesome, but also not as strong as our modern screws.)

See the new screws and all the old nails?

He also used a punch and a hammer to drive any of the nails that were sticking out a bit deeper into the pew.

After that, I added wood putty all along those seams to cover and smooth out all the indentations from many years of abuse and hammering in all those nails. It was in pretty rough shape.

 

It even looked rough from a distance!

I also used wood putty on some large cracks and scuffs and dents in other various parts of the pew. I didn’t cover all of the marks and cracks, though. We want to preserve the character but remove some of the marks that make it look like a dog gnawed on it.

Then, we sanded all the wood putty smooth. Things were starting to shape up at this point!

But as we worked on this guy, I realized the trim on the bottom wasn’t looking so hot.

See that rotten-looking, uneven wood on the bottom? If only the trim had gone all the way around to hide it!

We first though we could add some type of piece to the front of the trim, but the shape of the existing trim wouldn’t really allow us to do that without removing it and mitering the corners to fit in a piece of trim on the front side while still having a smooth, neat corner.

I realize that seems like a lot of work when we could just replace the trim, but I was worried about preserving the trim, if it was original. After a conversation with my dad, however, it turns out, the trim wasn’t original, so we ripped it off.

Actually, Wyatt ripped it off, and not without a fight.

There were SO MANY nails in there and the wood is so old and hard that it was quite the battle.

Finally, when the trim was gone, we realized we had a bigger problem on our hands. The bottoms of both of those boards were really, really in bad shape. Wyatt thinks the pew must have sat in water, which caused all those nails to rust and decay the wood. The rest of the pew is really solid, not rotten at all.)

So, the new plan is to saw off the bottom of each side and reattach a new board to regain the lost height. All of that will be hidden by some new trim, which Hubs will build custom for this pew.

However, all of this takes time. And so, we don’t have any fancy after photos to show you yet. I’m certainly anxious to have them, though, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, who wants to offer an opinion on what color this pew should be painted? (Refinishing isn’t really an option–there’s already SEVERAL layers of paint on there, most of which probably contain lead, so we’re planning to just paint over it and be done with it. (Painting will seal it in safely.)

What color do you vote for? I’m thinking white or blue or yellow or gray…since it will be in the kitchen. What’s your vote? Also, ever have a project take FOREVER to complete? (Say that Sandlot style to get the full effect of my impatience.) How do you cope in the meantime when you’re hungry for some results?

Don’t forget to leave a comment on this post with any questions you have. We’ll answer them in a post in the next month!