Refinish, Restore...

Rosewood Chair for Hove Mobler by Hans Brattrud - 1957. These beautiful chairs are a great example of a few things. I purchased a set of 8 for 700 dollars nearly two years ago. The previous owner claimed that they no longer matched their dining room (lovely golden oak). This is true since the chairs are rosewood veneer over bent ply - trying to get them to match golden oak is wood abuse. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - it took me some time to rework these back to where the designer intended, including having some veneer replaced by a local scandinavian furniture specialist (thanks again Danish Teak Classics). Reworking was complicated by my desire to try to be as "green" as possible. This is fine with some things, but nearly impossible with others, like stripping agents. The "green" option I first tried not only didn't work, but produced a chemical reaction on the surface of the nearly 100 pieces of wood that can best be described as close to burned sugar in a hot pan. This required that I go back to what works - real deal stripping agent. Lesson learned - you cannot go green with some things (the decision is to do or not to do, not can you do green).In all, I am probably into these chairs for around 900 bucks and a few days of hard work. I don't know what 900 bucks gets you on the new items market, but I know it isn't anything close to these and it is probably something generally low quality and ugly.

I don't know (or really care) what these are "worth", but I have seen single chairs go for something in the 2,000 to 4,000 context. Mark to "market" this set of chairs is an amazing investment that we love to use at dinner time.

UPDATE.    Two of the lounge chairs (same idea, but shorter) cleared at auction on May 17th, 2012 for $6,250 for the pair.   Granted these included the leather "cushions", but the chairs look to be in need of some tender loving care.    I am calling my insurance agent as I type...