Dashner Design Restoration<\/a> whom she refers to as \u201cthe Bob Ross of furniture refinishing,\u201d for his relaxing tone and encouraging demeanor. It was during this research process, plus coming up with a name for her business, that Byrd learned that she hails from a long line of craftsmen. <\/p>\nHer family immigrated from Sweden, and she discovered that her great-grandfather worked for none other than John Wayne. That\u2019s right, all the floors, cabinetry, and some furniture in \u201cThe Duke\u2019s\u201d California homestead were all crafted by her family. Not wanting to be too on-the-nose with her company, Byrd pulled the name \u201cTaaffe\u201d from that same lineage. <\/p>\n
More than anything, Byrd\u2019s goal is to keep rescuing furniture from the imminent threat of a future in a landfill, while supporting her rescue horses. She likes to call this practice \u201crescue to rescue.\u201d That doesn\u2019t mean that a real business in furniture design isn\u2019t somewhere in the future. <\/p>\n
\u201cI know how it works, I know how it\u2019s put together functionally. I know them mechanically as well as aesthetically, so I\u2019ve thought of a couple of designs in my head and I\u2019ve thought of going into furniture design,\u201d explains Byrd. \u201cThat\u2019s when I\u2019d be making the switch, if I ever have the guts to do that.\u201d <\/p>\n
There are currently six rescue horses \u2014 plus a rescue donkey named Ellie \u2014 that Byrd keeps at her family’s 45-acre ranch near Nacogdoches. Aged between 12 and 26, Nova, Dante, Whinny, Colator, Pezz, and Brody will live out the rest of their days peacefully grazing the land without any risk of further harm or neglect. <\/p>\n
\u201cI noticed that once they get old and injured they don\u2019t have a place to go,\u201d says Byrd. \u201cSo that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to do, give them a place to go. Many of them are still ridable, but they may not be capable of what they were once capable of. I put some of the money into buying other pieces, but all of it goes to them \u2014 100 percent of the profits. I find these pieces wherever I find them and fix them up. They\u2019re in rough shape before \u2014 hidden gems. I sell them and now they\u2019re someone\u2019s favorite piece in their house, and the same kind of goes for the horses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Byrd stresses that it\u2019s not the furniture business keeping the rescues housed and fed, but it certainly helps. At the end of the day, she just wants everyone to win: \u201cI want people to buy my furniture because they fell in love with the furniture itself. I don\u2019t want them to feel like they\u2019re just buying it for charity work, if that makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tips for rescuing MCM furniture <\/strong><\/p>\n1. Start with a piece you love, just in love with it. Then you\u2019re going to want to take care of it and do the best for it, and you\u2019re going to want to do the research to make sure that you don\u2019t mess it up. Just keep buying pieces you love. All of my inventory I\u2019m in love with, because you have to be able to be okay with keeping it. Not everything will sell.<\/p>\n
2. With vintage furniture, anything from the 50s is going to be good quality. The same goes for the 60s and even some of the 70s. Furniture back then was just made so much better. Back then, even Broyhill Brazilia was considered low-end furniture, which is crazy because it was particle board and wood veneer, versus solid wood, but it\u2019s so high quality compared to almost anything nowadays. <\/p>\n
3. Look for brands like Broyhill and Drexler. Any big designer name and whatever they\u2019re associated with is probably going to be quality\u2014Adrian Pearsall, Merton Gershun, of course Herman Miller. Anyone like that is going to be associated with a good brand.<\/p>\n
4. There are certain qualities to look out for. If a piece is heavy, it\u2019s more than likely well made. Look for dovetailing on the drawers. Go by those two things and over time you can just tell based on how the piece feels, how it looks, you\u2019ll get a good feel for it. But it always goes back to getting pieces you love. <\/p>\n
Hot take: Thoughts on painting vintage furniture <\/strong><\/p>\nI like pieces to look how they did coming from the manufacturers. Designers designed them to be a certain way and I want to respect their wishes and keep the furniture the way they designed it. It\u2019s also heart breaking for me to cover up walnut or whatever. <\/p>\n
I understand though how sometimes it\u2019s necessary depending on how bad the piece has gotten. But I also have this mentality that everything is fixable. If the veneer is bad, replace the veneer. If there are chips, then fill the chips. You really don\u2019t have to paint the whole thing. I know there is a market for it, but it\u2019s not my market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Midcentury modern continues to be one of the buzziest eras in interior design. As with most of the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":996598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,29596,4178,4179,130274,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,55486],"class_list":["post-996597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-diy","tag-furniture","tag-home-design","tag-midcentury-modern","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vintage"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/996598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}