norcalmod

Pablo Pardo Ventana lamp for sale [$600]

[It's been a minute, but we're still around. More activity over on Instagram, but this post is "blog worthy" due to its length and links. This is a project that has been in the "need to finish" queue for a while and I had to do a repair on our own lamp this weekend, so I finished this off.]

One of the more unusual things in our house is this awesome sculpture/lamp/shade called the "Ventana" by Pablo Pardo. The design is about 20 years old and it's long out of production — it was featured at ICFF in 2002. This larger size retailed originally for about $1200 + tax — crazy, right?

We were able to pick one up for ourselves years ago (we even had it in West Oakland) and we love it. Many year later, we came across a pair of lamps for sale and we snatched them up. They were incomplete, but I figured I could remake them into something close to the originals... and this is the result:

[The Ventana lamp is both a shade and a light (and a sculpture) — it's amazing.]

Chanda’s (second) refreshed DCM

After a successful refresh of her earlier DCM in walnut, Chanda and Jamie brought over one in ash that had a dislocated shock mount and a good bit of wear. A few hours in the workshop, and it looks a good bit better. The chair had been repaired a few times before and had an interesting amber glow which we were able to keep with some toned lacquer.

Chanda’s Cherner Chair rebuild and refresh

This is chair number three for Chanda and Jamie. This chair had seen better days and a few unfortunate repairs. The legs were nearly completely shot and a few new holes had been attempted to secure them. The pesky thing about these chairs is that the legs and the body are made of two different materials. In this case, maple and walnut… Both stained/finished to coordinate — The two dissimilar woods will never truly match. A few original features were kept including the light staining around the edges. These chairs as original did not embrace the multi-ply look like the Eames chair‘s did but instead used stain and edge treatments to obscure it a bit.

Because of the excessive wear, the chair could never be completely restored per original, but instead it was rebuilt using slightly more modern materials that took up the slack and will stand the test of time.

Chanda’s refreshed Walnut DCM

This one came into the workshop for new feet and a refresh ... a bit of time in the workshop gives it a renewed lease on life.

Eames DCM Repair

Eko needed a DCM repaired. The chair had seem some damage from movers — and a previous dodgy repair which left the chair's back with chips, scratches and some glue residue that marred the overall finish. We installed new shock mounts, repaired the damage on the back, gave a light coating of a new finish to even out the sheen, and gave the chair a light once-over to help to bring it back to life. Black ash finishes are a bit hard to repair without completely stripping the chair and re-staining, but the touch-up here is certainly serviceable.

Before + After

Terry's refreshed Eames DCW

Terry contacted me in the hopes to bring some life back to — and fix a botched repair — on one of her dining chairs.

[After... not a bad "refresh"]

We had exchanged photos of it previously and I had assumed it was a just a shock-mount-replacement. When we got the chair into the workshop some of the earlier evils unfolded including lots of scratches... and not only a "botched" repair, but one that put the back on upside down (with lot of dripping glue residue).

Before:

She also had a very limited budget and wanted to keep much of the original patina, but repair the obvious damage. In a case like this, new materials (shock mount, epoxy, finishing supplies) can eat up a budget quickly, but I think we did something good within the parameters we gave ourselves — we'll call it a "refresh" versus a restoration (only the back was removed and the back and seat were the main points of focus).

Repairing a Herman Miller DCM

Camila needed a repair on the shock mount of a Herman Miller DCM. She's a furniture stager and was working on a house that was on display in the next few days. Unfortunately, the movers were a bit rough and broke one of the chairs. The repair needed to be quick.

In most cases, I recommend new shock mounts. The old shock mounts often dry out and delaminate. Even when re-gluing, a dried-out mount is very likely to come delaminated again due to the brittle and dry substrate. And rehabilitating old materials is often more costly in the end than replacing. However, since time was of the essence, new parts were not possible. To make matters worse, this all of the mounts (on two chairs) had been repaired before and there was lots of bad glue residue that also needed to be removed. When we got the chairs into the workshop, the force of the mover's foible revealed itself with a bent frame that also needed to be straightened... All in a day's work in the workshop (well, a few hours — not a whole day): Two DCM's revitilized.

Ouch, movers... that hurt.

There's a lot of secret sauce and magic involved.

Orange is the new nice...

Dan contacted me about a shell chair that needed some love. It had seen better days for sure. It was missing a few feet, the shell was cracked and the entire surface has some sort of goo brushed over it... but underneath there was a beautiful chair wanting to shine through again.

A good bit of time in the workshop later, and it is truly magnificent.

New Category + New Service (Restoration Services)

One of the things that's hard to do is define oneself as a craftsman, artist, designer, etc... and with multiple projects afoot (some personal, some commercial), it's hard to draw lines. The enterprise, as it is, started with the renovation of our own Eichler-built house which begat RedneckModern. It didn't take too long to find folks who needed things that I could do and their projects became my projects... then, the things I built for myself became things that others wanted to buy. The later notion created NorCalMod.

Over the past few years, in addition to designing and making furniture, I've also been restoring it. From simple cosmetic fixes to more structural bits, it's been something to keep the workshop dusty... so much that it now deserves it's own category and soft launch.

Hey, folks, I'm restoring old furniture. Hit me up!

Seriously, there's probably three times as many pieces that I've not documented, but I'll detail the ones I have documented here. Over the years, I've developed a few decent techniques specifically to bring new life back to original Eames/Herman Miller chairs — both fiberglass and DCMs and LCWs.

So, watch for a few new posts that I've carried over from RedneckModern as their more proper home is here at NorCalMod.

Restoring Eames Fiberglass Chairs

The original Eames fiberglass chairs were, of course, groundbreaking in many ways: an innovative uses of materials, an interjection of color into businesses and homes, the creation of a "system" of shells and bases... and doing it, originally, at a fairly modest cost. Today, the irony is that these original examples are quite sought after and carry a high price tag. Our friends have a few "rope edge" chairs that are even more sought after, so scour your grandparents' basements, kids.

Avery contacted me to restore a few of her Eames fiberglass shell chairs. She had picked them up at her old University... undoubtedly bound for the skip. Being commercial chairs, they were originally fitted with stacking bases which are the least covetable of the variants. To use other bases, the shock mounts need to be relocated. We've done that before, so we took on the job.

These came to us in fairly rough shape. Someone had tried to relocate the original mounts unsuccessfully and in the process did a bit of damage to the fiberglass. They had used a variety of glues to try to adhere and re-adhere the mounts, but — as I mentioned to Avery: no worries — it's all part of the restoration process and price.

In short: We took the chairs in, (1) removed the old mounts, (2) ground off the original and re-applied glues, (3) affixed new mounts, (4) rejuvenated the surface, (5) fixed the damaged fiberglass spots, (6) balanced the bases, and (7) gave them a final polish... all in all giving new life to the chairs.