the washington post
.
thursday, november
14
,
2019
MD
Columnists:
Adrian Higgins, Meghan Leahy
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 202-334-4409
Mail:
Local Living section,
The Washington Post, 1301 K St.
NW, Washington, D.C. 20071
ADVERTISING
Doug Coffelt, 202-334-4440
ON THE COVER
Illustration by Kotryna Zukauskaite
for The Washington Post
Editor:
Kendra Nichols
Deputy Editors:
Elizabeth Chang, Amy Joyce,
Mari-Jane Williams
Art Director:
Victoria Adams Fogg
Designer:
J.C. Reed
Photo Editor:
Jennifer Beeson Gregory
Staff Writers:
Helen Carefoot, Jura Koncius
LOCAL LIVING
Home
problem. The wood that makes
up that frame in front of the
mirror does the real heavy lifting
in supporting the mirror’s
weight.
If the mirror seems secure and
the problems with the backing
seem as though they’re just
visual problems, you might want
to leave it as is. Squirting glue
into gaps between the backing
and the framing isn’t a good idea.
Although some glues are
formulated to fill gaps, many
others, including cyanoacrylates
such as Krazy Glue (a brand of
Elmer’s Products), aren’t really
gap fillers; they bond two
surfaces that are tightly pressed
together. Plus, some glues
contain ingredients that ruin the
silvery coating that makes a
mirror a mirror.
If the mirror on your hall rack
seems in danger of tipping out,
though, beefing up the
connection makes sense. The
simplest option would be to add
a few more fasteners. Although
nails were used originally, it’s
surprisingly difficult to pound
nails into wood that’s upright
and free-standing, without solid
backing behind it. The piece
moves with each hammer tap,
thwarting your efforts.
Instead, use screws. You might
be able to get them to hold
securely in some of the empty
holes left by the tacks that have
fallen out. Otherwise, place the
screws the same distance from
the edge but midway between
the fasteners from side to side.
Pre-drill with a bit just slightly
narrower than the screw shank.
Wrap a piece of tape around the
bit first as a depth gauge so you
don’t accidentally drill so deep
that you make a hole through the
front. Rather than using screws
with heads that are bugle-
shaped, get pan-head screws,
which have heads that are flat on
the back, so the screw heads
don’t dig into the backing and
cause it to split — a risk when
drilling close to the edge.
If the backing is so severely
warped that you can’t get screws
to hold, you could replace the
backing without affecting the
original look of the parts of the
hall rack that show. But you
would need to proceed
cautiously while removing the
old wood because backing is
sometimes held to the mirror
with glue, said Tonya Collins,
account manager at Schoenbauer
Furniture Service (800-955-7603;
schoenbauer.com), which repairs
furniture throughout the
Washington area. “With antique
pieces, nothing is 100 percent the
same from piece to piece,” she
said.
If you aren’t sure whether the
mirror is secure or if you don’t
want to tackle making it more
secure, a company that repairs
antique furniture can help you.
Schoenbauer makes house calls
for a minimum fee of $175, which
would cover an assessment plus
adding more fasteners. If the
backing needs to be replaced, the
initial visit would cover getting
the shape for a replacement
piece, but the cost of the new
material and the installation
would be extra, Collins said.
Have a problem in your home?
Send questions to
[email protected]. Put “How
To” in the subject line, tell us where
you live and try to include a photo.
BY JEANNE HUBER
Q: I live with my grandfather’s
hall rack, which has the original
mirror held by two half-circles of
wood. They are tacked onto the
main piece by brads. The half
circles are warped, and some
brads have fallen out. I’ve tried
Krazy Glue, but it doesn’t hold
the warped wood. I don’t want to
try re-tacking the wood for fear
of making things worse. What
can I do?
Washington
A: A framed mirror, which is
essentially what you have on
your hall rack, typically sits in a
rabbet, or groove, that rings the
opening. With a beveled mirror
like yours, the groove might even
have an angle that matches the
bevel. Behind the mirror, there is
usually a thin wooden backing,
often made of relatively ugly,
unfinished wood. The backing
can also be plywood or
hardboard, a panel material
made of wood fibers that began
showing up in furniture in the
1920s.
Whatever the material, it
usually isn’t especially good-
looking on furniture designed to
sit against a wall, as with your
hall rack. The builders knew the
backing would be out of sight, so
it was a good place use pieces
that might otherwise be scrap.
Also, the functional demands on
the backing are modest: keeping
the back of the mirror from
scratches that would remove
some of the silvering and
preventing the mirror from
tipping out of the frame.
So unless your hall stand has
been jostled and tipped a lot,
which would probably happen
during moves, the brads holding
the backing in place aren’t likely
to be under much pressure. Even
the warping may not be a
HOW TO
Warped wood around a hall rack mirror might not be an issue
READER PHOTO