Hairy Claw Foot Buffet Restoration

The story of how I got this buffet - and the matching dining table and chairs and server - is an unbelieveable sequence of events. I don't know if it was just an incredible stroke of luck or the hand of God, but one way or the other, I got the dining suite and Goodwill did not.

The suite dates to the 1890s, and is "Empire" style. 

However, it was not without it's issues. The chairs were in a really awful state, as I posted about here.

The table, server and buffet were all scratched up; apparently the movers who removed the pieces from the previous owner's beach house just stuffed everything into moving vans with no padding, and things rubbed and bumped and gouged each other and then were crammed into a storage unit, where we dug them out.

The top of the buffet was in this state:

Some of the scratches were deep, so I lightly sanded the whole thing down, without taking all the stain off, because matching it would be difficult.
I used steel wool and very fine grit sandpaper.

After I sanded it, I tried Minwax wood conditioner on it, and was glad to see that the stain seemed to respond to moisture and have a uniform tone to it.

I chose these Howard products to finish it up:

 

The Restor-a-finish did exactly what it claimed, and restored the lovely tone of the wood. I absolutely love the Feed-n-wax polish, I used it on this buffet and several other pieces, and loved the results. I highly recommend it!

 

 It's hard to fully appreciate it in photos; in person it's absolutely stunning.

See, proof that I don't always paint everything I can get my hands on. :)