Antique Tea Cart Redo

I had the pleasure of restoring an antique tea cart. It was a challenge in many ways. It tested my skill, knowledge and patience, and I learned which products are just better and which ones I will never use again.

Tea carts were advertised as “Hospitality on Wheels”. They were very practical for women who entertained as the cart doubled as a table and the food, beverages, and tableware could be transported easily to and from the kitchen. This tea cart has a drawer that likely stored napkins, or cutlery. I think today, they would likely be used as a bar cart, which I think would be very cool.

Here is the top before

The burr walnut top is the part I am most proud of, but really tested me. Some of the veneer was lifting in places and there was a big chunk of veneer missing. Also, the veneer around the edges was thin and worn. I replaced the missing veneer on top with some veneer off another piece and tried to match as best I could. I tried to fill in the worn edges with wood filler. After stripping the orginal finish, I applied a coat of Minwax Penetrating Stain in Special Walnut with Fusion Mineral Paint's Stain and Finishing Oil in Natural. This was a terrible mistake. The wood started to blush and I had to start again. If you don't know what wood blushing is, it looks like white haze all over the wood. I thought the Minwax Stain was oil based, but I guess I was wrong as I think the two finishes were having a chemical reaction on my wood top. On my second try, I used General Finishes American Walnut Oil Based Stain and then Saman top coat in gloss. I will only use General Finishes from now on and Saman topcoats from now on.

I found that Saman topcoat is not as thick as varathane and goes on smoother with less texture and brush strokes showing. I finished the top by sanding it with 3000 grit sandpaper and applied turtle wax polish and then buffed it with a large buffing pad. The turtle wax and buffing pad are for repairing scratches in your car, but it worked here. You have to really work to get the polish out of the wood, so while I used the buffind pad on my drill, I also had buff it out using a very soft cloth.

You can still see where I patched the veneer, but a lot better than not having done so.

The body of the tea cart is finished in Midnight Blue by Fusion Mineral Paints, and the legs were finished in Ebony from the same product line. I am not a fan of their stain products, I don’t know if I will use them again. With the exception of their natural finishing oil stain, I find their coloured stain and finishing oil products to be a hit or miss with coverage. While Fusion products don’t generally need a topcoat, I found the legs and body to be too dull against the gloss table top, so I applied the same gloss finish to the legs and Saman’s satin water based top coat to the blue paint.

The part I am least thrilled about are the wheels. In their original condition, they were cracked and dry and needed a lot of glue in some places to get them sturdy again.

I didn’t want to paint them, so I tried my best to fill in the cracks with filler, but you can still where the cracks are. The tea cart had rubber around the wheels, but the rubber was old, cracked, and pieces were missing, so it needed to be replaced. I found replacement rubber from Furniture Restoration Centre of Oregon. The replacement rubber was really easy to replace, and they have full instructions on their website on how to do it. In fact, their entire site is a gem. If you are into restoring furniture, they are worth checking out: https://restorationsupplies.com/

I am pretty pleased with the result. It took a long time to get it in the shape that it is in now, but I think it is well worth it. What do you think? Would you have an antique tea cart in your home?

Until next time,

Nicole