Hoosiers are very popular and we restore a few every year at the Restoration Studio. Many of them that have crossed my path have spent years in basements or garages. This Hoosier is a good example of that.

This particular Hoosier seemed destined for the curb, but the owner was committed to restoring It and that's where The Restoration Studio stepped in. Now I must warn you before you begin, Hoosiers are a lot of work to restore and tackling one is a very ambitious project to undertake. Expect it to take you some time to complete the project.

Painted or Stained?

To begin with, it's a good idea to assess the job and determine what your goal is. Is your Hoosier painted, or is it stained?

If your Hoosier is painted, and your goal is to re-paint, you can just proceed to the next step. Same goes if your Hoosier is stained and you want to either stain again OR paint.

The tricky question is for those of you who own a painted Hoosier and want to refinish to a stained wood finish.

Many Hoosiers were factory painted, and many were originally stained  and then painted by a homeowner at some point.  You must first identify which you have, because IT DOES make a difference. Factory painted Hoosiers should remain painted. They are poor candidates for a stain finish because of the low quality wood that was often used. Also, the paint can be very hard to remove completely from the pores of the wood if it was factory painted.

  You will need to do your best Sherlock Holmes impression and determine which you have.

Below: Years of deterioration are shown here In the before pictures.

Time was not kind to this Hoosier. This Hoosier was originally stained, but was later painted by a homeowner. This was determined after attempting to strip a test area. It stripped clean, revealing oak drawers, doors and side panels. A tell tale sign that it was stained originally. Some Hoosiers will also have the original finish stamped on the back panel.

Stripping a Hoosier is no different than any other type of paint/finish stripping, and is covered in other areas of The Learning Center website.

I would guess this Hoosier spent some time outside, or in a moist barn or basement. It was badly warped!

This condition Is not uncommon with Hoosiers. Typically I start by taking the cabinet completely apart. I then make replacement parts for all the panels that are not salvageable. All the parts are then sent to finishing to be stained and sealed before assembly. Here, I just used 1/4" oak plywood bought at Lowes or Home Depot.

After all the new panels were made, the rest of the doors, drawers and cases were sanded, stained and finished. As with stripping, finishing is a matter of preference and the different procedures can be found in other areas of The Learning Center website. On our job, I stained, sealed with shellac and finished with Lacquer.

Below: Assembly Is the next phase of the job, and It begins to resemble a piece of furniture again. Be sure that you take pictures and notes along the way, so you know how to put everything back together.

The same process was performed to the top cabinet. The original hardware was cleaned and the Hoosier was ready to be sent home to a very pleased owner!

Replacement Hoosier parts can be purchased on the web. There are only a few suppliers, so most places

sell the same, or very similar products.