Furniture repair in a house is an ongoing process, and for me a learning curve.  The first rule is, as in the medical profession, do no harm.   Figuring out how the piece was originally built, with what, and how it is supposed to work are the first steps.   Patience and the proper tools are also critically important.   And then, prompt repair: if you have the tools on hand and something breaks you can fix it immediately, reducing further damage, loss of broken parts and growth of the attic of broken furniture. 

So in the last few days, as I am working my way through the house cleaning furniture, I have also had fixed (I am not the furniture fixer) a rocking chair and a massive veneer failure on a sideboard.  The rocking chair had been a slow failure of two previously fixed breaks in the legs and rocker.  Theoretically it could have continued to be used in its wobbly state, but by repairing it we don’t have to warn people to be careful (never something one wants to do).  The veneer was a potentially more disastrous failure: an entire drawer face split in diagonal cracks.  Because the veneer is a flame pattern and matches the other drawers, replacement would not be possible.  So the careful application of glue and clamps for a full 24 hours was undertaken, which looks like it will solve the problem.  Unfortunately in both cases the problem will reoccur.   All of the sideboard’s veneer shows the diagonal stress, indicating a stress built in to the original attachment of the veneer.  The rocker is weakened by a rather kludgy fix early in its life (about a century and half ago).

I liken it to a an olden wooden ship: it floats just fine if you routinely fix the leaks.  Still it is nice to know that both fixes will allow those pieces to remain in use for another few decades.