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.