G. Michael's Restoration

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G. Michael's Restoration Located in the historic city of Fort Collins, Colorado. G. Michael’s Restoration is an esteemed furniture repair and antique furniture restoration wood shop.

We serve Fort Collins and all Denver metro areas.

Want to see what actually happens to a table top between "before" and "after"? 🤎🍽️This dining table came in with a top t...
10/08/2026

Want to see what actually happens to a table top between "before" and "after"? 🤎🍽️

This dining table came in with a top that had been loved hard. Scratches everywhere, white scuff marks, chipped edges, and a finish that had gone so hazy the grain pattern was hard to make out. And it is a pattern worth making out, four matched sections meeting in the center, with a darker band around the outside. The leaf had faded to a slightly different shade than the rest.

The base, with its reeded apron and tapered legs, was in good shape, so it was masked off and left alone. Everything below is here is the top and the leaf only.

What we did:

🧻 Masked the base so nothing below the top got touched
🪵 Stripped the old finish and sanded the top and leaf back to clean, bare wood
🖌️ Applied a first sealer coat to lock in the color and even out the surface
🎨 Sprayed the finish coats in our booth, with the air and dust controlled, until the top had real depth

Spraying matters. A brushed finish on a top this size would show every stroke. A sprayed one goes on in thin, even layers and dries smooth as glass.

If your dining table top is scratched, cloudy, or worn through, and the base is still solid, you do not need a new table. You need a new top surface.

Send us a message with a photo at [email protected] for a free quote! 📩

Family owned in Fort Collins since 1985. Serving Loveland, Windsor, Greeley, Timnath, and the Denver metro.

More on our table work: https://gmrestores.com/table-refinishing-and-restoration/

Which is worse, water rings or a cracked top? This table had both. 🤎☕A round coffee table on a heavy oak pedestal with f...
10/05/2026

Which is worse, water rings or a cracked top? This table had both. 🤎☕

A round coffee table on a heavy oak pedestal with four carved lion paw feet. The kind of base that gets passed down because nobody could bring themselves to get rid of it. The top had not aged as well. The three boards had pulled apart at the joints, leaving open cracks across the surface, and the finish was covered in water rings and scratches.

Here is the honest part. Wood moves. Boards shrink over the years, especially in our dry Colorado air, and the joints between them open up. It looks alarming. It is one of the most routine repairs we do.

What we did:

🔧 Took the top off the base so it could be worked flat
🪵 Stripped the old finish, water rings, and scratches down to bare wood
🔩 Glued the joints and clamped the boards tight until the cracks closed and the top was one solid piece again
✨ Refinished the top in a warm honey tone that matches the oak base it sits on

The base did not need a thing. It just needed a top worth standing under.

If you have a table with a split top, water damage, or a finish that has given up, send us a message with a photo at [email protected] for a free quote! 📩

Family owned in Fort Collins since 1985. Serving Loveland, Windsor, Greeley, Timnath, and the Denver metro.

More on furniture refinishing: https://gmrestores.com/refinishing-furniture-fort-collins/

Here is a bench that was hiding its own color. 🤎🪑When this mahogany bench came into the shop, the top and the carved sup...
09/28/2026

Here is a bench that was hiding its own color. 🤎🪑

When this mahogany bench came into the shop, the top and the carved supports looked like two different pieces of furniture. The top was a dull brown. The scroll pedestals were nearly black. And both cane seat panels were torn clean through, so nobody had sat on it in a while.

It was all the same mahogany. The finish had just gone dark and tired over the years, and it was covering everything up.

What we did:

🔧 Removed the old finish from the top, the carved leaf border, and both pedestal supports
🪵 Glued and clamped where the bench needed it, so it is solid before it is pretty
🧺 Took out the torn cane and installed new cane in both seat panels
✨ Refinished the whole bench so the mahogany shows warm and red, and the carving has its depth back

The acanthus leaf brackets and the carved border around the top were there the whole time. You just could not see them.

Torn cane and a dark, dead finish are two of the most common problems we see on old seating, and both are very fixable. If you have a bench, chair, or settee like this, it is worth a look before it goes to the curb.

Send us a message with a photo at [email protected] for a free quote! 📩

Family owned in Fort Collins since 1985. Serving Loveland, Windsor, Greeley, Timnath, and the Denver metro.

More on our antique work: https://gmrestores.com/antique-furniture-restoration/

Quick bit of math. Colorado became a state in 1876. This walnut table is more than 180 years old. So it was already sitt...
09/24/2026

Quick bit of math. Colorado became a state in 1876. This walnut table is more than 180 years old. So it was already sitting in somebody's parlor before Colorado was Colorado. 🤎🪵

It is a tilt-top side table on a turned column with three curved legs, and it came into the shop looking every bit its age in the wrong ways. The top was covered in scratches and dull spots. The pedestal had chips in the finish. The old coating had dried out and quit protecting anything.

The job was a full refinish:

🔧 Took the top off the tripod base so each part could be handled properly
🪵 Removed the old, failed finish from the top and the turned column
✨ Cleaned up the scratches and refinished both the top and the base so the walnut glows again
🕰️ Left the honest wear that belongs on a piece this old, then put it all back together

The walnut was always beautiful. It had just been buried for a long time.

If you have an old table with a scratched, hazy, or dried-out top, the wood is almost always fine underneath. That is a finish problem, and finishes can be redone. The table cannot be re-bought.

Send us a message with a photo at [email protected] for a free quote! 📩

Family owned in Fort Collins since 1985. Serving Loveland, Windsor, Greeley, Timnath, and the Denver metro.

More on our antique work: https://gmrestores.com/antique-furniture-restoration/

We get this question every week: can you just paint it? 🤎🎨Yes. But "just paint it" is where most DIY furniture projects ...
09/21/2026

We get this question every week: can you just paint it? 🤎🎨

Yes. But "just paint it" is where most DIY furniture projects go wrong. The color is the easy part. The prep and the coating are what decide whether it still looks good in five years. And the right coating changes depending on what the piece is made of and how it gets used.

Three recent paint jobs from the shop:

🪑 Metal school chairs. They came in as a mismatched set, grey, faded mint, and beige, chipped and rusting at the welds. We prepped every frame and painted them one bold blue, then refinished the wood seats and backs so they matched again. One set, like they were always meant to be.

🖌️ Glass-door cabinet. A full color change on the outside from natural cherry to dark slate, with the cherry interior left natural so the wood still shows through the glass. Dark outside, warm inside.

✨ Fretwork pedestal dining table. Chipped trim repaired, then the whole table finished in green using a 2K polyurethane from M.L. Campbell. That is a catalyzed two-part coating, chosen because a dining table top gets more abuse than any other surface in the house.

Metal, wood, and a high-wear top. If we had used one product on all three, at least two of them would fail. Matching the paint to the piece is the whole job.

Have something you would love in a new color? Send us a message with a photo at [email protected] for a free quote! 📩

Family owned in Fort Collins since 1985. Serving Loveland, Windsor, Greeley, Timnath, and the Denver metro.

More on our restoration work: https://gmrestores.com/antique-furniture-restoration/

Here is a fun one. Look at the outside of this trunk and tell us what it is made of. 🤎🧳If you said wood, you are half ri...
09/17/2026

Here is a fun one. Look at the outside of this trunk and tell us what it is made of. 🤎🧳

If you said wood, you are half right. The slats across the top and front are oak. The panels in between are embossed metal sheet, pressed with a wood grain pattern, which is how a lot of these trunks were built more than a hundred years ago. Under all the grime and a finish that had long since died, the whole thing read as one tired brown box.

The job was a full refinish, inside and out:

🔧 Cleaned and refinished the embossed metal panels and the oak slats
🔑 Brought the pressed corner caps, rosettes, latches, and the original Yale & Towne lock back to a proper shine
✨ Made the side handles whole again so the trunk can actually be carried
🪵 Cleaned and refinished the bare wood interior

Now the oak glows, the metal panels have depth again, and the inside is clean enough to store linens in. The trunk went from "put it in the garage" to "put it at the foot of the bed."

These trunks get tossed constantly. If you have one from a grandparent, or found one at an estate sale, it is almost certainly worth saving.

Send us a message with a photo at [email protected] for a free quote! 📩

Family owned in Fort Collins since 1985. Serving Loveland, Windsor, Greeley, Timnath, and the Denver metro.

More on our antique work: https://gmrestores.com/antique-furniture-restoration

Sometimes a table just needs someone to take the bad finish off and see what is underneath. 🤎🌸This ornate carved side ta...
09/14/2026

Sometimes a table just needs someone to take the bad finish off and see what is underneath. 🤎🌸

This ornate carved side table came to the shop with an old topcoat that had failed completely. It was lifted, wrinkled, and clouded over from edge to edge. You could tell there was some kind of inlay under it, but the color and detail were buried.

What we did:

🔧 Masked off the carved base and removed the old finish from the top by hand, so the thin marquetry veneer underneath stayed safe
🪵 Cleaned and prepped the bare surface once the inlay was fully exposed
🎨 Applied a new finish to the top to bring back depth and protect the wood
✨ Touched up the carved legs and apron rather than refinishing them, keeping the original look of the base

The result speaks for itself. A ring of floral marquetry in light and colored woods around a dark, figured center, all of it clear again.

If you have an old table with a finish that has gone cloudy, sticky, or flaky, do not write it off. That is a finish problem, not a furniture problem, and it is very fixable.

Send us a message with a photo at [email protected] for a free quote! 📩

Family owned in Fort Collins since 1985. Serving Loveland, Windsor, Greeley, Timnath, and the Denver metro.

More on our table work: https://gmrestores.com/table-refinishing-and-restoration/

Not every restoration ends in wood grain. Sometimes the right answer is green. 🤎🍃This pedestal dining table with two lea...
09/10/2026

Not every restoration ends in wood grain. Sometimes the right answer is green. 🤎🍃

This pedestal dining table with two leaves came to us with a lot of miles on it. The pierced fretwork trim around the edge had chips right down to bare wood. One leaf had a corner that was splitting and flaking. The old paint was worn, scratched, and patchy across the top, the leaves, and the urn pedestal.

Here is what a full restoration looks like on a piece like this:

🔧 Hardware off. The brass leaf latches came out so nothing got coated over or gummed up.
🪵 Trim and edge repairs. Damaged sections were repaired, filled, and sanded flush so the fretwork reads clean again.
🎨 Prep on every surface. Top, both leaves, the urn pedestal, and the base all got taken down and readied for finish.
✨ Finish. A green 2K polyurethane from M.L. Campbell. This is a two-part catalyzed coating that cures hard and holds up to daily use far better than a standard paint.

Then it all went back together, and the table is ready for another few decades of dinners.

If you have a painted or lacquered table that looks tired but still stands solid, do not replace it. Send us a message with a photo at [email protected] for a free quote! 📩

Family owned in Fort Collins since 1985. Serving Loveland, Windsor, Greeley, Timnath, and the Denver metro.

More about our table work: https://gmrestores.com/table-refinishing-and-restoration/

Chairs are the hardest thing that comes through our shop, and most people are surprised by that. 🤎Think about it. Every ...
09/07/2026

Chairs are the hardest thing that comes through our shop, and most people are surprised by that. 🤎

Think about it. Every other piece of furniture in your house just sits there holding things. A chair carries a moving person, several times a day, for years. Every joint in it takes that load every single time. So a chair can look completely fine and still be coming apart quietly on the inside.

Here are four chair projects, and four completely different answers.

The outdoor arms. Finish applied by hand with a cloth. Partway through the job you can see the line where the rag has passed, treated wood on one side and untreated an inch away. Slats and curved arms take a sprayed finish unevenly, so this kind of work goes on slowly by hand.

The metal ones. A set of tubular chairs with wooden seats arrived wearing three different colours between them. Grey, faded mint green, beige. Chipped paint and corrosion showing at the joints. They went back out as one matched set in a single blue, with the wood brought back warm and clean. If you sat in a chair like that at school, you'll recognise the shape immediately. 🪑

The lounge chair. Came in dry, faded, and blotchy. Went out deep and warm with the slat back crisp again.

The dining chairs. Ladderback frames taken all the way back to raw pale wood, then finished in a soft off-white and sent on ready for their seats. ✨

Antique or modern, wood or metal, painted or clear. Each chair tells you which one it needs, and the job is knowing how to listen.

Family run in Fort Collins since 1985, serving Northern Colorado and the Denver metro.

Send us a message with a photo at [email protected] for a free quote!

https://gmrestores.com/restoration

Three stages. Three completely different pieces of wood. Same boards the whole time. 🤎This round pedestal top arrived gr...
09/03/2026

Three stages. Three completely different pieces of wood. Same boards the whole time. 🤎

This round pedestal top arrived grey. Not stained grey, just used up, with all the colour gone out of it and no depth left at all. That's what a dining table looks like when the surface finally quits.

Stripped back, it goes pale. Almost cream, with the pencil layout lines still on it and a couple of knots showing. That's what had been under there the entire time.

Then it comes back warm, and the figure in the wood reads properly again. 💪

The finish is worth explaining. It's a 2K polyurethane from Campbell. Two components get mixed and then chemically react with each other to cure. It isn't drying, it's hardening into something new.

You can't buy it in a hardware store and you can't brush it on. It takes a full spray booth and a proper finishing room.

That's not showing off. It's what a dining table needs. Hot plates, spills, homework, elbows, every single day for the next thirty years. ✨

Fort Collins shop. Family run since 1985.

Send us a message at [email protected] with a photo for a quote! 💬

Find out more about table refinishing here: https://gmrestores.com/table-refinishing-and-restoration

Address

113 Hickory Street
Fort Collins, CO
80524

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm

Telephone

(970)4938737

Website

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