Tosh will work on furniture from other periods, but he admits that MCM is his personal favorite and his specialty, since he began collecting long before he made his living working with wood. He has an affinity for Danish Modern and Heywood Wakefield, and his mastery of the Heywood Wakefield wheat and champagne finishes has become nothing short of legendary.
Tosh started his career at Lakewood Furniture doing the "gruntwork" of sanding, stripping and a little staining. Eventually, he opened his own shop and now is the go-to guy of many of the major designers and mid-century dealers in the area. He mixes his own toners and stains and claims that a great deal of trial and error went into perfecting them.
Calling some designers people who "like to do bad things to good furniture" in the name of making everything match and covering imperfections, he generally discourages "ebonizing" and encourages using many different types and colors of woods in the same house or even the same room.
When asked for one top secret trick of the trade, Tosh offers several, including steaming dents out of furniture with a wet paper towel and an iron and using heavy, uncut carnuba wax as a cleaning and waterproofing agent. He advises people not to try refinishing unless they know what they're doing, as it just makes his job more costly and more difficult, but his best tip for lovers of beautiful furniture is a simple one: Use a coaster!
From interviews on decordallas.com and dfwmcm.blogspot.com
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| Dunbar rosewood cabinets toshmahal.com |
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| Herman Miller thinedge cabinet toshmahal.com |
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| Robsjohn-Gibbings table toshmahal.com |
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| Heywood Wakefield hutch toshmahal.com |
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