Fruit Bowl and Cabinet

Lynne's father died last April after a long illness and when we cleared his home we kept a couple of things that he'd made.  He'd been a carpenter all his life and had an amazing array of tools from through the ages.  He was also a keen amateur film photographer who frowned upon the digital age and had a large collection of film cameras and developing equipment.  He had taught woodwork for most of his life up until retirement and also dabbled with wood carving in later years.

The two pieces that we kept were an oak stationary cabinet with a broken door and a turned mixed wood fruit bowl.  Both items were pretty dirty and unkempt so Lynne asked me to repair and clean them for her.  We hadn't realised when we acquired the cabinet that it was an apprenticeship piece that he'd made when he was sixteen in the early 1940's.  We found his original technical design drawings which had the cutting list and prices attached.  The bowl was one of many that he had made both for his own home and also as presents for friends and family.

After cleaning, repairing and varnishing the pieces I made a few photos of them.  As tribute to my father in law I converted them all to monochrome.  I hope he'd approve.

I had to take the varnish back to bare wood on both items and I had to glue one of the doors together on the cabinet.  The door had been broken for some time but he had been too unwell to fix it so the broken door had beeen stored in a cupboard.  There is a big stain on top of the cabinet which I couldn't completely remove but Lynne said it gave the cabinet some character.  I put the bowl over the stain for this shot.

Cabinet and Bowl

Inside the cabinet one of the drawers was damaged and I had to glue one of the white plastic knobs back on.  The inside of the fruit bowl was also stained where fruit had gone soft and soggy and I could remove the marks completely before varnishing over them.

Cabinet and Bowl

I decided to colour this one sepia too to make it look older than it is.  Love the range on textures in this image.

Apples and Pears in the Fruit Bowl