The Furniture Bible

A comprehensive guide to restoring, transforming, preserving, and learning about your furniture—from antiques to midcentury, be they family heirlooms or funky flea-market finds—from Christophe Pourny, Martha Stewart’s go-to restorer.

One part Joy of Cooking, one part Domino magazine, this is the all-new furniture bible. Unlike the snoozy (and generally black-and-white) how-to-refinish-your-furniture workbooks currently on the market, this is a stealth technical manual embedded in the context of a seductive, full-color coffee-table book. The heart of the book is an accessible primer on Christophe’s favorite techniques—ceruse, vernis anglais, water gilding—with step-by-step how-tos for achieving them yourself. Readers will learn about wax finishes, oil finishes, and lacquers, as well as effects to create with paint, metal, and gilding. 

Examples are shown on a wide range of furniture—a table, a desk, a hutch, a plant stand, a simple chest of drawers. Readers will learn about furniture construction, from medieval times to the present; how to identify types of wood; and how to distinguish a Louis XIV chair from a Louis XV one. They will come away knowing how to care for their leather and properly clean hardware; fix a broken leg and replace felt pads; distinguish a real antique from a fake; and make their own polishes at home.

“Wall Street Journal , 10 Crucial Home Design Books for Beginners Library Journal , Best Books of the Year Amazon , Best Books of the Month "A guide for the pros, DIYers and furniture aficionados eager for tips from the expert. Pourny's practical advice on all things antique is coupled with historical notes." --Time "A comprehensive but accessible guide to restoration that lays out everything you need to know about making over wooden furniture." --Martha Stewart Living "Authority wafts from [Pourny's] handsome how-to book like the sweet smell of lemon oil." -- New York Times "A practical, visual guide for anyone who wants to restore a cherished heirloom or simply correct a water stain." --San Francisco Chronicle "Pourny's book will serve brave DIYers as well as design aficionados wishing to hone their connoisseurship." - ArchitecturalDigest.com "It's really everything you wanted to know about furniture but were afraid to ask." -- WWD.com "Whether you want to refresh your mother's outdated bureau, refinish a set of vintage Danish Modern chairs, or restore antique marquetry to its former glory, this volume's got you covered and then some ." - DesignSponge "Encyclopedic in coverage . . . deftly illustrated and defined . . . a fantastic go-to source for furniture care." -- Library Journal , starred review "A thorough and practical guide for the furniture expert as well as for the novice restorer. . . . This guide will find a wide audience among those who simply want to learn about and appreciate good furniture, as well as those who are more hands-on." -- Publishers Weekly , starred review "This is a very useful and important book for anyone who owns furniture--antique, modern, or new--or anyone who plans to fix or restore it." --Martha Stewart”

Wall Street Journal, 10 Crucial Home Design Books for Beginners

Library Journal, Best Books of the Year

Amazon, Best Books of the Month

“A guide for the pros, DIYers and furniture aficionados eager for tips from the expert. Pourny’s practical advice on all things antique is coupled with historical notes.”
—Time
 
“A comprehensive but accessible guide to restoration that lays out everything you need to know about making over wooden furniture.”
—Martha Stewart Living

“Authority wafts from [Pourny’s] handsome how-to book like the sweet smell of lemon oil.”
—New York Times
 
“A practical, visual guide for anyone who wants to restore a cherished heirloom or simply correct a water stain.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Pourny’s book will serve brave DIYers as well as design aficionados wishing to hone their connoisseurship.”
–ArchitecturalDigest.com
 
“It’s really everything you wanted to know about furniture but were afraid to ask.”
—WWD.com
 
“Whether you want to refresh your mother’s outdated bureau, refinish a set of vintage Danish Modern chairs, or restore antique marquetry to its former glory,
this volume’s got you covered and then some.”
–DesignSponge

“Encyclopedic in coverage . . . deftly illustrated and defined . . . a fantastic go-to source for furniture care.”
—Library Journal, starred review

“A thorough and practical guide for the furniture expert as well as for the novice restorer. . . . This guide will find a wide audience among those who simply want to learn about and appreciate good furniture, as well as those who are more hands-on.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“This is a very useful and important book for anyone who owns furniture—antique, modern, or new—or anyone who plans to fix or restore it.”
—Martha Stewart

Christophe Pourny is one of the most esteemed furniture restorers in the business. Top decorators like Bunny Williams, John Saladino, and Jamie Drake entrust him to regild Louis XVI bergères, refresh the luster on French-polished 18th-century dining tables, and work magic on time-worn straw marquetry surfaces. Descended from a long line of artisans, he was reared in his cabinetmaker father’s atelier in the South of France and apprenticed at his uncle Pierre Madel’s legendary antiques shop on rue Jacob in Paris. Today, Christophe is the official restorer to the City of New York and counts the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Uma Thurman, and Martha Stewart among his celebrated clients. He frequently appears on TheMartha Stewart Show and in top shelter publications, and his handcrafted furniture tonics are sold nationwide.
 
Jen Renzi is a Brooklyn-based editor who specializes in architecture and design. A former staffer at House & Garden magazine, she is a columnist at TheWall Street Journal (“My Favorite Room”) and House Beautiful (“The Last Words”) and edits the IIDA’s design journal, Perspective. She has written for Architectural Digest, New York, Art + Auction, Wallpaper, The New York Times Magazine, Interior Design, and Condé Nast Traveler, among other publications. Jen wrote the text for Vera: The Art and Life of an Icon (Abrams, 2010), is the author of The Art of Tile (Clarkson Potter, 2009), and ghostwrote Jonathan Adler’s Happy Chic decorating series for Sterling Innovation (2010). She has also contributed to design books for Princeton Architectural Press, Simon & Schuster, Pointed Leaf Press, and others. 

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