Anyone know about furniture brand - Kittinger?

[WVMomof3]

I got a little end table for free. I was going to paint it because it had some water marks on it. Turning it over to clean it I notice there is a plaque and a number stamped on it. Looking up this brand, Kittinger, I see they are high dollar pieces. I wouldn’t think it is worth much, has some chips in addition to water stains. But I just want to make sure I’m not ruining an antique or high dollar furniture by painting it. Anyone know anything about this brand? The table was free so don’t want to pay someone to restore it but wondered if maybe I should do more research before painting it with $10 chalk paint.

 

[Alesia]

Chips and watermarks are easy enough to repair. If you're planning on selling it, DO NOT paint it - you'll completely destroy the value. It's probably worth more than you think as it is.

If you're going to keep it, do what you want.

My personal opinion is that you should leave it alone and find someone who will treasure it.

 

[miztressuz]

I got a little end table for free. I was going to paint it because it had some water marks on it. Turning it over to clean it I notice there is a plaque and a number stamped on it. Looking up this brand, Kittinger, I see they are high dollar pieces. I wouldn’t think it is worth much, has some chips in addition to water stains. But I just want to make sure I’m not ruining an antique or high dollar furniture by painting it. Anyone know anything about this brand? The table was free so don’t want to pay someone to restore it but wondered if maybe I should do more research before painting it with $10 chalk paint.

If you have a plaque with the invoice number then it should not be an antique, according to this page which mentioned it is a more recent thing to number the pieces - http://www.kittingerfurniture.com/worth.html

In that case, even if it's worth a good deal of money to buy new, you're probably not losing much value to use it as you see fit. There should be other pieces out in the market that will keep your resale value down. If it's got a really good protective layer (like shellac or polyurethane, whatever was used to protect the stained wood) then paint shouldn't harm it. There'd just be more work to restore it later as you now have to remove the paint. I've had some old furniture that was painted over and after removing the paint the original finish was intact and we just needed to lightly sand and re-apply the clear coat to even it out, other stuff needed to be sanded down to the wood and re-stained.

 

[WVMomof3]

If you have a plaque with the invoice number then it should not be an antique, according to this page which mentioned it is a more recent thing to number the pieces - http://www.kittingerfurniture.com/worth.html

In that case, even if it's worth a good deal of money to buy new, you're probably not losing much value to use it as you see fit. There should be other pieces out in the market that will keep your resale value down. If it's got a really good protective layer (like shellac or polyurethane, whatever was used to protect the stained wood) then paint shouldn't harm it. There'd just be more work to restore it later as you now have to remove the paint. I've had some old furniture that was painted over and after removing the paint the original finish was intact and we just needed to lightly sand and re-apply the clear coat to even it out, other stuff needed to be sanded down to the wood and re-stained.

Thanks. I did see that page. My piece is hand numbered and the number is also carved into to table so I thought maybe older than the ones they said were numbered on the plaque. But I could be wrong. Having a hard time researching it. I haven’t seen any like mine in pictures.

 

[miztressuz]

Thanks. I did see that page. My piece is hand numbered and the number is also carved into to table so I thought maybe older than the ones they said were numbered on the plaque. But I could be wrong. Having a hard time researching it. I haven’t seen any like mine in pictures.

That does get murkier. Do you have an auction house or appraisers in your area? I'm lucky, we have an auction house not far with several certified appraisers and they do free appraisals once a month. At the very least an auction house might be able to guess the age or the style name to make it easier to look up, if they don't think it'll fetch money at auction. Furniture is fickle, it all depends on the style people are looking for at that time. Even if you have an antique, if that style isn't in trend, 100+ years means nothing value wise. (supply/demand and all)