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Welcome to our Blog FAQs section, where we address common questions clients have about carpentry services. Whether you're considering a custom furniture piece, home renovations, or repairs, we aim to provide clarity on our processes, pricing, and timelines. From understanding the types of wood we use to the benefits of hiring a professional carpenter, our FAQs are designed to help you make informed decisions. If you have more questions, feel free to reach out to us directly for personalized assistance!

Why Furniture Repair Is A Common Post-Christmas Need

Wood furniture repair is often required because of general wear and tear over the years. But on other occasions, accidents can cause damage like scratches, gouging, dents, or even breakages.

Although we work on fixing such damage all year round, there are certain times when some people have extra reason to get work done.

One of them is just before having guests round at Christmas time as hosts will want their furniture to look presentable, perhaps including some items normally kept in storage, which are retrieved to ensure there are enough seats at the table for Christmas dinner.

However, a big family gathering with excited children also makes it more likely that furniture will be put in harm’s way in front of those who get a bit giddy, act carelessly with their new toys or, when losing at their new game, turn into a five-year-old version of Godzilla.

You won’t find it hard to locate articles about common disasters that happen during the Christmas holidays, from collapsing Christmas trees to pets getting poisoned and people being injured by new toys.

However, if your big issue is the accident with a piece of furniture, either because it was dropped when being retrieved from the loft, trashed in a tantrum, or broken when a portly guest sat on it, that may seem just as bad.

Small-scale damage, such as bits of wood broken off, scratches, or gaps may be fixable on a DIY basis using items like superglue, wood filler epoxy resin, and similar products. But if the damage is more severe and you are worried the item of furniture may be a write-off, this is when the experts should be brought in to bring it back from the brink.

Indeed, when a damaged piece of furniture is made to look as good as new, you might well agree that the sight of the restored product brings more joy than opening any present on Christmas Day.

How Carpentry Skills Helped Rescue Notre Dame

In an age of so much modern technology, it can be easy to overlook the enduring importance of traditional skills like carpentry. It is only when something wooden is broken yet can be repaired that the value of this skill is recognised.

Much of the time, that recognition comes from a myriad of cases where someone in London needs furniture repaired, and a skilled craftsman makes it good as new, often to the amazement of an owner who might have feared their table, chair, or other item might have to be written off.

If this is an item with sentimental significance, the value goes way beyond the financial. And if that applies on one level with objects of personal or family significance, it is truer of things with wider cultural and historical importance.

This is something many in France will recognise right now, following the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, five years after a devastating fire during renovation work.

Bringing the famous building back to life was no easy task, not just because of the building’s scale, but the level and nature of the skills needed to restore and replace the scorched woodwork. As France 24 reported, it was thanks to the rare skills of an international team of skilled carpenters that it was possible to pull off such an ambitious project.

Among those it praised were Belgian organ builder John Deblieck and American timber framer Will Gusakov, who found his way onto the Notre Dame project via the Carpenters Without Borders organisation, which is based in France.

Mr Gusakov said the rebuild was “incredibly complex”, because “we we were basically making a replica of the frame as it has been down to every single individual piece, of which there were hundreds slightly different than the next.”

One can only hope none of London’s grand cathedrals suffers such a calamity. But the fact that such great carpentry skills still exist shows that if it did, there would be someone capable of carrying out restoration.

This being the case, you can be confident that if your item of wooden furniture breaks, we can definitely fix it.

Are Great Materials Or Skills More Important In Carpentry?

There is a saying, not unique to bespoke carpentry but found in all skilled trades, that a bad worker blames their tools.

This phrase has been echoed and interpreted an incomprehensible number of times, but typically is meant to mean that the best results come as a result of skill as opposed to using the best and most luxurious materials possible.

Of course, in carpentry, materials do matter to a great degree, as there are a lot of aspects to the quality of wood that affect the final result, and in combination with exceptional technique, the results can be astonishing.

However, one man decided to answer the question once and for all by taking his specialist carpentry techniques and applying them to the most nondescript wood he could find.

As the head of a guitar manufacturing company, Bob Taylor had typically used the types of exotic tonewoods that had become sacrosanct in the music world, but with several woods commonly used for guitars becoming endangered, he was curious as to how much the actual wood really mattered.

He believed that expertise in the bracing, the finishing and the gluing process was what gave a guitar much of his tone, and in 1995 put that to the test by taking pallets from the warehouse and fashioning them into an acoustic guitar using the same methods he used for any other.

The result was the Pallet Guitar, sold as a limited edition of 25, that used five pieces of oak that were joined in such a way that it was impossible to tell, with a tone that resembled instruments made from much rarer materials and would have cost a lot more to build.

It was not as good as a guitar made by the same manufacturer using exotic woods, but the fact it was much closer than anyone expected highlighted that the skill of the carpenter is more important than the materials they use, as long as the materials are good enough to do the job.

How Can Scratched Wooden Floors And Furniture Be Repaired?

Wooden floors and furniture alike can be beautiful and charming, with a timeless appeal that will never go out of fashion. Unfortunately, however, they can also be damaged more easily and noticeably than some other materials.

Among the worst examples of this are scratches. These show up because both the colour and texture become very obviously different, especially if the wood is darker and if a layer of varnish or lacquer has been gouged out.

However, you don’t have to shrug your shoulders and treat this like a ‘war wound’ or cover the damaged area up, as there are ways they can be fixed. The question you should ask, however, is whether the damage can be fixed in a DIY fashion or whether you need a carpentry expert to carry out a more extensive repair job.

Householders can often repair simple scratches quite easily. As Checkatrade notes, This involves using a wood treatment wax and a cloth, or a simple kit to repair. A wood patching kit can help with discolouration on surfaces like a table.

The advice given here is sound enough, but it comes with the important caveat that if it is a deep and severe scratch, it is likely to be beyond the typical householder's ability to do an adequate repair job. This is where you need to bring in a professional who knows exactly how to repair and restore wooden furniture.

Some online advice you might see to deal with scratches will have you using items ranging from steel wool to sandpaper, but unless you are very skilled with this, you could end up making matters worse, for example by accidentally sandpapering off lacquer from surrounding non-damaged areas.

In any case, not everyone is adept at carrying out DIY repairs. That’s OK; whether the job is a big or small one, we can help make sure that the damage is repaired and your furniture or floor looks as good as new.

How Did Skilled Carpentry Preserve The World’s Oldest Church?

Wood is one of the best natural building materials in the world, and the only one that is capable of constantly regrowing and refreshing.

Whilst natural materials tend to have an inevitable shelf life, skilled custom carpentry and careful care can ensure that wooden furniture can last an extremely long time. However, one church in Essex puts the capabilities of wood to its absolute limits and has lasted nearly a thousand years.

Based in the Essex countryside, Greensted Church was originally believed to have been constructed in 845 AD, by far the oldest wooden building in Europe. However, it is believed that the current church’s earliest origins date back to roughly 1053.

The oldest original part is the central nave, which is made of split oak tree trunks that reflect a traditional form of wooden carpentry used by the Anglo-Saxons.

The discrepancy with the dates comes from attempts to determine the age from the tree rings, which was originally dated from the oldest piece of wood, but was revised to be the youngest.

This part of the church is original and believed to be extremely small, but over the years, various rather unusual additions have been built alongside the original wooden nave.

These include a brick chancel in the 16th century, a white clapboard tower from the century after this, and some ornate decorations that emerged as part of a Victorian restoration.

Given that so many old wooden buildings have ended up in a state of disrepair, it is remarkable how well the wooden parts of Greensted have survived and avoided demolition or ill-conceived attempts to “improve” the original timber.

This longevity was the result of skilled carpentry in the first place and excellent preservation in the centuries following, a trait that is somewhat fitting given the longevity of the rural village it has called home for so long.

What Types Of Bespoke Furniture Is Needed For Tiny Houses?

In what can only be described as a delightful moment of irony, the tiny house movement has become exceptionally huge in recent years, in no small part thanks to the work of bespoke carpenters.

The movement, which relies on minimalism, a strict dedication to only taking and keeping what one needs and making the most of every square inch of space, often requires either a lot of compromises or some particularly clever tricks to make the most of the space.

A tiny house can vary in size, although the International Residential Code tends to set the maximum floor space as 400 square feet, slightly bigger than a 45ft standard shipping container, which provides some indication of just how small a tiny house can be.

However, as anyone who has converted a shipping container or has seen one up close can attest, there is more space than you might expect if you use it effectively.

Here are some tips for the types of bespoke furniture you are likely to need for a tiny house.

Everything Has Multiple Purposes

If a sofa can fold out to become a bed, tables have storage spaces or ottoman stools for additional seating without compromising storage, which can allow for many more options for keeping everything organised whilst avoiding the need to go for the smallest options you can physically use.

Whenever looking for furniture or getting in touch with a carpenter, ask yourself if there is a possible way it can be adapted for another purpose.

Everything Foldable

On that same subject, the best and most effective tiny houses rely on elaborate carpentry the most because they often have foldable solutions that can be moved or tucked away to provide as much floor space as possible.

Wall-Mounted Solutions

With floor space being at a premium, clever wall-mounted designs are important to keep the space tidy and beautiful at the same time, and this is something a skilled carpenter can help a lot with.

3 FAQs About Built-In Furniture

Furnishing your home will always be an exciting endeavour, but it’s one that requires a lot of thought and planning if you’re to avoid making potentially costly mistakes. The aim is to come up with interior design schemes that you’ll love for years to come, marrying both style and practicality to perfection.

When it comes to your furniture pieces, you have various options. You can either go for freestanding items that you source individually or as a set, or you can opt for built-in furniture in your living spaces, something that’s fast becoming a very popular option for all styles of property.

To help you decide if the built-in look is right for you, here are just some of the more frequently asked questions that we get here at The Olive Carpentree. And, as ever, if you’d like any further information or advice, just get in touch with the team today.

What are the benefits of built-in furniture?

Having bespoke carpentry designed with your unique home in mind means that you can get something made that fits perfectly into any spaces you have to work with, no matter how awkward, small or angular they may be. You’re able to maximise your living spaces and design efficient layouts to get the most out of your rooms. You’re also sure to appreciate the unique value that built-in pieces add to your home.

Can built-in furniture be used throughout the home?

Yes! Built-in home furnishings are incredibly versatile and can be installed anywhere you like, giving you everything you need to enjoy your home. Whether you want to use the space under the stairs for something, are looking for a custom pantry in the kitchen, want bespoke wardrobes in the bedroom, need extra storage in the bathroom or something else, built-in pieces can help you achieve what you have in mind.

Are there any cons to built-in furniture?

The only drawback to having built-in pieces installed is that once they’re in, they’re in. They can be difficult to remove, so it’s important that you give your interior design schemes due consideration to ensure you’re making the right decisions.

The Olive Carpentree