Restoration business is a labor of love

WINSTED — When it comes to the craftsmanship of Pat Friends, everything old is new again.

For the last three decades, the part-time Winsted resident has spent much of her free time refinishing and restoring antique and aged furniture pieces.

Rummaging through yard sales and local landfills to find quality pieces ripe for the refinishing, she has restored countless antique bureaus, drawers, cabinets and wooden trunks.

“I enjoy it,� she said.

Friends, 65, was first exposed to working with older and antique furniture pieces through a good friend who has his own refinishing shop in her home state of Florida.

“I watched him doing it and I thought it was pretty neat,� Friends said, adding that it did not take her long to decide that she wanted to try her hand at restoring a piece. “So, I spent a lot of time in his refinishing shop, and I caught on quick.�

Over the last several years, Friends has spent her summers in Winsted, staying with her daughter and son-in-law, Paula and Frank Wiarda, for three or four months out of the year.

During that time, the furniture maker has become a staple and popular dealer at Bob’s Flea Market along Route 7 in Massachusetts, just over the Connecticut border. It is a seasonal market, running from the late spring into early October.

“A lot of traffic comes through there,� she said of the roadside spot, which is based at Seward’s Tire Center in Great Barrington, Mass. “It’s been going for 15 years now. It’ s very nice, and we all know each other.�

Always looking for ways to challenge herself as a craftsman, recently Friends has begun to create shelves and stands with aged pieces of wooden stockade fence — completing most of her work with only a jigsaw and a hammer.

“And I generally only use cedar,� she said.

Friends said one of the more labor-intensive portions of creating the new furniture pieces from the distressed wood is the process of pulling out, restoring and reusing the original nails that remain in each piece of fence.

“I straighten them out and then put them back in,� she said of the nails. “Because to match the rest of the wood, the nails need to look used.�

She then reinforces the pieces with a special outdoor wood glue.

The shelving and stands have been a popular item among antiques dealers, both here and in Florida.

“They use it for displays in their stores,� she said.

And while Friends has returned to her home in Florida, she brought with her a van full of aged Northwest Corner furniture — a vehicle full of possibility and promise and the craftsman’s vision.

“It’s really neat,� she said.

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