Just when you think things can’t get any worse; a tale of the worst shipping nightmare I ever had.

I sold a table about a month ago. In the perfect storm of logistics, I had a shipper coming that night to pick up a small coffee table headed to Los Angeles for Chairish. Since they only use ‘vetted’ uship folk, I thought I’d ask if I could hire him to drop the table off in Arkansas on the way. To my delight, it worked! I paid him by Venmo and was told his friend would be picking up my items in a half hour. When I have bigger pieces with multiple parts, I try to pre wrap things. So I took the table pads and stretched wrapped them together in a bundle. I wanted to do similar to the 3 leaves, but the guy who picked up insisted the shipper would be rewrapping everything his own way and he’s an excellent packer so no need. Everything left to go to the friend’s storage about 10 miles from here to wait for the shipper to roll into town and get them, I was in touch with the client and besides him being a little slower than I expected him, which is common when you are dealing with people personally traveling across the country with truck issues, weather and other distractions, the delivery went well and he was headed west to California. That is, until I got a text from the client asking if there were only 2 leaves. I was like no, there should be 3, plus a full set of table pads. She said, I only got 2. I texted the shipper, who was now in Arizona and told me his trailer is full and there is no way he could look through it until he delivered a few things and made some space. In the mean time, I offered to call his friend to see if by chance it got left in PA and if so, I could go pick up and Fed Ex to the client and if he found it, he could do the same. No biggie, but we had to find it. He stalled on giving me his friends phone number (who did give me his card but I have no idea where I put it that night). For 4 days he stalled on looking for the leaf or giving me the phone number for his friend. Finally after he says he is in San Diego on delay because of the trailer getting fixed and delivering (late and after scheduling an appt with her but no showed and never contacted her) got the cocktail table delivered and said that yes indeed the leaf is in PA, gave me his friend’s number and I am feeling good that the mystery is solved and I can personally pack the leaf (control freak here) and get it off to my client without relying on him to do it. I roll up to his friend’s place after arranging to pick it up. He is talking and shows me some stuff he’s selling, takes me across the parking lot to his garage and says this is your leaf, I sanded it. It took a second to register…..YOU WHAT?????? He said well he (his friend, the shipper) rushes to much. He’s always rushing and he forgot it. But WHY DID YOU SAND IT???? IT WAS MINT???? Then he gestured to a much larger table that was sanded (weirdly….like reminded me of a primered car……) and said he took my leaf but says he does not have it. SOOOO, he took your leaf and left mine??? Yeah. At this point…..I was fuming mad and I was like BUT YOU SANDED MY LEAF, which looks NOTHING like the table you are working on AND is a fraction of the size. WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK??!!! I COULD FIX THIS…..I could fix the forgotten leaf IF it was in the condition I shipped it in. THIS COULD NOT BE HAPPENING….what kind of bizzaro world is this????

Above is a pic I snapped as the friend of my shipper was trying to talk himself out of looking like the failed link and blamed his friend for forgetting to take the leaf with him. Meanwhile…..I was panicking. How the F and I going to FIX this???!!!! The rest of the table is in Arkansas.
The friend tells me he will FIX IT. He has a big banner hanging on his house FURNITURE REFINISHING AND CANING. Ok, he’s a professional, this could work. I mean, after working with highly skilled woodworkers for 12 years, hanging out in the finishing room working on my own projects under their watchful eyes….I knew this was a BAD IDEA in 3…..,,2……..1. Friend picks up a can of Mohawk walnut finish from his table and says I’ll use THIS. I quickly stopped him with NO THAT’s WALNUT! THIS TABLE IS NOT WALNUT. You need pecan. Oh I did not mean that, he says. I will use cherry like the Amish use. I said cherry will be too red. You need pecan to have a shot at matching this color. Panic was now flooding my core as I knew by our conversation and the fact that he said he would use rattle can lacquer that I knew more about finishing than this so called professional. Rattle can lacquer sucks. It never gets even or thick enough to protect a table top, I only use it on small touch up jobs where I am trying to preserve the original finish but need to add it to cover up a scratch or something. It always feels rough and I just would never think to use it on a big project or a table leaf that needs to blend in with the rest of the table. But reluctantly, I leave him with the leaf…..24 hours and it will be refinished. I only got 2 in process pics and I knew this was a BIG FAIL.

Refer to the table pic up top. TOOO REDDDDD! I was losing any confidence in this deal ending well. Like there is not much I can do to save face here. Meanwhile, I updated the shipper on the situation. He texted back, why did he sand it? I could only answer- I have NO IDEA! So the next evening, I picked up the ‘finished’ leaf. My fingers brushed over the top and it felt fuzzy. OMG. Did he sand this thing with fucking 60 grit??? It was sooooo red and sooooo freaking gross. My 11th grader brought home a shelf she made in WOOD 1 a week ago and it looks fantastic. She did a great job on her finish. This ‘professional’ is some kind of gypsy scammer. I cannot believe people are paying him to wreck their stuff.
By this point, I have not slept much in a week or 2 with all of the stuff happening here. My mental state is just wrecked and I am trying to work my government job meeting deadlines and begging people to do my interviews AND field all this stuff and going backwards. ALL BECAUSE I TRUSTED A SHIPPER THAT WAS ALREADY DOING A DELIVERY FOR ME. I did the only thing I could think of. I called my friend and former employer and asked him to help me save this leaf. He was also concerned about the color matching. It’s hard enough to get a good match when you have the table in front of you, but all we had to go off was a pic I took in the full sun and the underside of the leaf where the stain from the original spray was undisturbed. I stood by his side as he took to the sander, trying to erase what will go down in history as the worst refinish ever. I can see the fuzzy from the pic. 🤮 This is the finished pic of what I picked up. It was so sloppy with still wet stain dripping down the sides and the fuzzy badly sanded/badly sprayed topcoat. I watched as layer after layer disappeared under many gummed up sandpaper discs following a proper sanding procedure ending at a nice fine grit to slowly close the open grains. Should be very smooth with no signs of sander marks, fuzzy wood or other imperfections.

After sending me to the hardware store to choose a few stain colors that we could blend to get close to the stain represented on the underside, they were artfully mixed to the custom color that would hopefully do it justice once again. The pic above is the first coat and we were satisfied with the color. The next step was mixing the top coat and checking it to make sure it was compatible with the stain. The test checked out and the topcoat was drying on the sample so we were good to go. For folks who don’t get the opportunity to understudy with the pros, you have to be a mini chemistry buff when you work with finishes. So many things do not react well together. It’s especially tough when you are trying to replicate a 60 year old finish with age and environmental exposures. We used modern technology on this topcoat. It’s a 3 part catalyzed conversion varnish which is basically a plastic composite. It is much more durable than a lacquer or polyurethane. In a professional shop, they would add pigments to the clear base and in the layers of coats would be adjusting the tints to reach their final desired shade. This process also adds a lovely depth to the wood that brings out the grains so beautifully and gives them a flame like glow. Most of the vintage pieces we love were prepared the same way, only with the tints being in the lacquer. That is why is it always difficult to achieve a perfect refinish on many vintage brands. I picked up the finished leaf this evening and it is beautiful. I will ship it tomorrow and hope that my client is satisfied with the results. 🤞🏼 I think it will be close in color and I hope it will blend nicely with the rest of the table. Looking at it compared to the pic, I definitely think it matches the lighter areas. Since there are 3 leaves, it may be best to place it in the middle. I am anxiously awaiting to see pics when it is received, As a side note, the effect of the veneer patterns on the top of the table were achieved by using opposite sides of the wood. One side (the exterior of the piece after it curls when shaved off the log) has more closed grains than the underside which would be tighter. Same cut of wood as far as grain matching but the stain would absorb differently on each piece. That technique made this tabletop so gorgeous. 💗

The moral of the story is: sometimes you can do everything right but the circumstances or in this case, comedy of errors….are calling the shots. The only mistake I made was trusting people to take care of my precious cargo and deliver it safely and intact to my buyer. It was nice to spend time with my former boss watching him do what he spent a lifetime perfecting and starting to relax that I can deliver a product that may not be a perfect match, but will be a high quality job she can use and be proud of. I will share this with her as up until now I have not shared the entire story as I did not want to fill her head with worry. I worried enough for the both of us. Ha. Every customer deserves a high quality product. You people trust me and my decisions and I take that very seriously. Thanks for your trust, I hope if I ever fail you I get the chance to make it right. 🥰.

I just brought home 2 bedrooms and finish the job tomorrow. Give me a few weeks to go through and list them. It’s been rough and I need to catch up on my job and recover from the heavy lifting. That said, I am at MAX capacity. I wanted to build another garage on our property. We got approved for the mortgage and found out that our township adjusted the set back lines from 20 to 30 feet which basically screws us from building the equivalent of a 2 car garage. Half was space to store our VW Vanagon and the other I was going to insulate and heat to have a finished studio space to work out of. Sadly, I think this dream hit a road block that we cannot work with. I am not willing to hire a lawyer to fight the township on this one. Anyway, sorry to be so depressing. It’s been a not so fun couple of weeks that make you question why you are even doing this anymore. Just go get a full time job with no heavy lifting and make some real money. 🤷🏻‍♀️ #selfemployedlife

XO MALISSA