I’m in the process of remodeling my bathroom. I’d like to keep the original, 1950s era wood veneer door.
I am refinishing it, and some of the veneer near the bottom has chipped off. It is not a lot, and it’s not super noticeable, but it is clearly damaged.
I’m at a loss as to how to fix/hide it. I filled the chips with wood filler, but of course now it just looks like wood filler.
A thin (2" or so) strip of brushed nickel would go with the decor, but the thinnest kick plate I can find is 6 inches, which, I think, would look silly.
I’m thinking I’m just going to have to live with it.
Look for stair trim. You can wrap it around under the door or trim off what you don’t want.
Wood filler can be colored in a variety of ways. If you match the original wood it would be unnoticed by anyone but you. You can even use a Sharpie to draw in some grain. It will never look quite right to you but no one else will ever notice.
Yeah, a friend of mine restores mid-century modern furniture for a living. There’s more than one way to repair a veneer, but if it’s small area less than a 1/2" square, he’ll often use wood filler. He textures and imitates the visual aspects of the veneer really well, and I can’t really see where he’s fixed it even when he points out. I’m pretty sure he’s using something finer than a sharpie for the grain, but I’ve never watched him perform the work, so who knows?
Either way, yeah, small bits of wood being lost? Patch them with filler, and employ artistic means to cover the evidence of the repair. You’ve done the first, now you just have to finish the job.
I had a table that I discovered was veneer while sanding it down to finish. Went right through the veneer. Couple of square inches right in the middle.
I got some furniture repair markers and just drew the grain back in. You can tell if you look for it, but no one noticed it for years.
That was my thought. fill with wood filler, then use some means - markers, wood stain pens, etc. - to simulate the grain. You will see it every time because you know, but the average person will never notice unless you point it out.
Reminds me of the time we made an upright piano out of corrugated cardboard for a school play. Apparently, just random dry-brushing darker slightly not-straight brown paint streaks on brown cardboard looked like wood grain unless you were close up to it. You would probably get the same effect with your repair. The trick is to match colours so the patch is not obvious. feather in the simulated grain pattern from the real wood so there’s not an obvious discontinuity.