“Came Out Better Than I Expected”: 50 Times Old Things Got A Second Chance At Life (New Pics)

Before - Previous owners painted over and beat our our original (1900) front door to Hell. They even had painted over the frickin' mail slot!
After - Stripped, repaired and stained. Credit goes to World of Wood for their amazing job. They even shined up the trolley bell.

Restoring this piece was quite the journey! After spotting a dainty occipital plume atop the birds’ heads, I suspected they were Great Blue Herons—a hunch confirmed when brilliant blue tones emerged beneath the dirt. I cleaned, replastered with Venetian plaster, and painted with specially ordered clay paint to stay true to traditional fresco techniques. Though I’m no master restorer, I gave it my all, and with a bit of care (and luck), I hope this artwork lasts for many years to come.

We do furniture restoration. I do the woodwork and she does upholstery. In terms of quality, Kroehler was unmatched, and there are still tons of upholstery pieces available by them from the 60s on FB marketplace that just need a skilled craftsperson or two to bring it back to life.

What makes their pieces so high-quality is the internal build material. This sofa uses WHITE OAK for the FRAME, which no one would do now. It’s harder than a walnut and heavy!

This sofa specifically was made in the style of, or sort of a copy of, Adrian Pearsall, whose brand, Craft and Associates, made walnut-framed furniture with very forward designs. Their designs were more aesthetically pleasing, but whenever we get Craft and Associates pieces, (which is actually worth more) the frames are always broken and need repair.
The Kroehler-made furniture is always rock solid. If you ever want a vintage sofa that is worth the investment of new upholstery - go with Kroehler!!!

I restored these using electrolysis and then a tiny bit of electroplating.

I was stunned at the gorgeous details hiding under all that paint (I counted at least 5 layers!) Debating whether to commit myself to stripping the rest of the original door plates from our 1920s rental once the weather perks up - my house still smells like citristrip.

It didn’t turn out perfect, but I learned a lot and at least it’s not blue anymore lol

The table was $360. I stripped and sanded the table and sized it down from 10ft to 8ft long. Took a week.

I also got the chairs off of FB Marketplace - $100 for all of them.

They're actually great quality, only minor stains and fabric pilling, but after a fabric shaver and steam clean looked brand new.

In addition to $200 in materials to refinish the table, I spent $660 on the entire setting.

I bought this 1950’s AMF DeWalt 9” radial arm saw for $50, and spent 4 weeks restoring it. I am aware that they are fairly dangerous, but I understand how to use them safely and plan to have this be a dedicated crosscut machine. It took a few hours to fully calibrate everything, but once I did that, it was dead accurate.

My mother bought this in New York for her first apartment. As a child i loved imagining i was tiny and this was my house. She found it in her basement last year and gave it to me. I spent some time cleaning and refurbishing and adding some new details to it. It makes me so happy to see it hanging in my kitchen.

I posted a couple of months back this cool Paoli rocker I picked up on the marketplace. It was in desperate need of reupholstery, the rocking mechanism needed to be fixed, and the frame was quite dingy as well. Here’s some After and Before pics of the chair.

My mother-in-law gave me this old bird feeder she had because she knew I could restore it and make it new again. It definitely needed some TLC, so it got some new paint, and now it's all ready for the birds to enjoy. Swipe to see the before photos!

These chairs were salvaged from the owner’s childhood home, which was lost due to a house fire. The wife brought them to me for restoration. She requested a walnut stain to coordinate with existing furniture. Very happy with the results.

Found this absolute monstrosity and decided try try my hand at restoring it for my house. It’s far from perfect now (don’t look too close), I could have continued working on it, but I was ready to be done so I’m happy with “good enough”.

I think the insets behind the drawer pulls used to have some br hardware sitting in them, and the wood there is really rough. The person who painted it also decided to put dozens of little metallic stickers into each one - removing them then tore up whatever coating was originally there. I will likely end up painting those black to get it closer to the original look.

I found it on the marketplace, lowballed the guy, and he took the offer, so suddenly I was in very deep. It weighed what felt like 300 pounds, so I built an all-wood frame to cut down on the weight significantly, reinforced with metal brackets on the corners. Modded the wheel to spin freely to the left, so nobody had to pay, of course.

Our favorite candy, individual Advil packs, and Keychains I made. I've always been obsessed with dinosaurs and own reptiles, my wife loves animals and has worked with them her whole life, so it's mostly Keychains of dinosaurs or animals, a few secret ones. I make art, so I had several generous artist friends contribute their time or expertise. Shout out to my friend for the signs, specifically.

It went great! People were eating it up, and it was picked clean by the end of the reception.

Sanded, oiled, and re-upholstered the seat on this 1960-made chair from H. Krug in Kitchener, ON, Canada. Super comfortable. Unfortunately, the label under the seat got tossed when it was re-done.

Another beautiful dressing table is complete! This one is Australian Blackwood. It was warped and covered in black water rings. The mirror was broken into 4 separate pieces, and the whole thing needed to be glued and clamped as it felt like it was going to fall over. Stripped, sanded, and re-finished - its natural beauty is shining through!

There's no makers mark so I'm unaware of the date but it's certainly vintage, maybe even antique?

My grandparents had this in their house in the 60’s. I snagged it quite a few years ago and just finally got around to cleaning it up.

It’s my favorite thing in my house now.

I can only imagine the conversations my mom had on it as a youngster, or the family members who are no longer around.

This is a 1920s Hanson Scale Co Bluebird Series home scale. Found it at an antique shop a few months back. I had the deconstruct it, sandblast each piece, remove rust, hammer uneven metal pieces, hire someone to redesign the face template, then paint it and put it back together. This was a process. It’s painted in what I believe to be the original blue that the Hanson Scale Co. used 100 years ago.

The paint didn’t match perfectly, but I’ll repaint it all after a couple of other fixes on the stairs. The last picture is my little perpetrator before the paint (penultimate picture).

Just refinished my ‘93 MIJ fender jaguar. I love this thing but was never big on the original candy apple red paint job. Stripped, stained, and sealed it and swapped for a red tortoise shell pickguard to go with the original matching headstock. My first attempt for anything like this, very happy with how it came out! Mastery bridge and trem were previous upgrades.

I recently restored a vintage 90s landline telephone that had become heavily discolored and grimy over the years. The restoration mainly involved whitening the plastics using peroxide and UV light, carefully removing old, sticky stickers, and thoroughly deep-cleaning the entire phone, including the keypad, which had accumulated quite a bit of dirt and grime. Thought you'd enjoy seeing this transformation - it's amazing how fresh it looks now! I'd love to hear your thoughts or suggestions for future projects.

I bought this lot online from a store that unfortunately had been completely flooded. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and they weren’t cheap but I figured if I can make my money back and keep a top loader it’s a win. I ended up fixing all of them and they now work perfectly. I will be selling them on to play another day for someone else to enjoy.

Repaired with plaster and concrete compound, sanding with fine grit sandpaper. Painted with acrylics and sealed with numerous coats of clear outdoor Krylon spray paint.

Giving this to a very interesting little old lady (91) who's had this in her yard for decades. Hope she's surprised!

Don't throw out Grandma's old cruddy statues! They clean up so nicely.

I wanted to share the transformation with you all. What started as a dusty, grimy, nearly-forgotten keyboard turned into a beautiful piece of retro tech again.

The oldest known burial in the cemetery is that of Joel Baldwin, who died October 21, 1776, at the age of 26. His headstone has been hidden in storage for a number of years, but now he’s back standing strong and more secure than before. Something really special is happening at Old Settlers Cemetery and I’m proud to be apart of it. 

16 year old garden stone that was given to my mom at my uncle’s funeral service. Still need to hit some spots of the background but I hope I did it some justice!