Note:  Some of the changes in color are due to
using two cameras and different lighting!

I bought a lovely Del Rey set owned by one family, and am getting it ready to sell it.
Unlike most Monterey styles, this Del Rey set would fit even in an apartment, a kitchen,
or guest house, it is so compact.  It is adorable — and I rarely use that word!
Part 1 of the cleaning of this set is here.

Lovely set was almost ready for the infill, top coat, and wax.
I would have left the woman and her donkey as is, except that both were splintering, which made me decide to gently sand the splinters and infill to preserve.

Chairs cleaned, but missing paint.

I mixed matching historic paints, a bit tricky due to the overcoats.   Some paints were made of paint pigments no longer in use, and the old formulas varied wildly from batch to batch due to the nature of the raw materials.  We’ve treated dozens of pieces of Mason Monterey, as well as  Coronado and Imperial Monterey styles, and I’ve created paint chips for all the colors of paints, and have notes on the written formulas.

Del Rey is new to me, and there were colors that matched Mason. However, I still had to mix colors, such as the lovely turquoise of her skirt.

Reparation infill begins to fill seriously damaged areas.  The knobs were originally orange but many had lost most of their paint, and two were splintering!

Infill was needed on most of the decorative areas, though we only infilled what was necessary. Some paint for the decorative figures on the table and chairs were lifting, so both a seal (which you can’t see in the images) and infill was used to preserve.  Note that slight shifts in color is due to lighting.

The topcoat was removed by grease in many areas.

A sealer coat was placed on the table and hutch before the top coat of paint was placed all over all pieces.  The top coat also acts as a second seal for loose paint.  It is too shiny in these pictures, but was taken down after the paint cured to match the paint in the well-preserved chair (ours),  above.

The goal is to have a set that is functional, safe,
and preserves as much of the original finish as possible.

©MPF Conservation
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