Passion for preserving: Bell City man gives new life to old furniture, one piece at a time
Swipe or click to see more
Corey Chauvin is recreating an antique pair of bathroom vanities for a Nacogdoches, Texas, homeowner complete with 12-inch barley-twist legs that are being custom-made in Pennsylvania. (Crystal Stevenson / American Press)
2/5
Swipe or click to see more
Corey Chauvin is restoring this mid-1800 bar that was created in Lebanon. Only 50 were made and few are left. Inside the cabinet is a built-in turntable and radio. (Crystal Stevenson / American Press)
3/5
Swipe or click to see more
Corey Chauvin said his stepfather used this exact model of a Sears Craftsman saw table for his remodeling projects. Chauvin said when he saw this table online for sale, he had to have it. 'I showed my stepdad, and he said, 'Yep, that's the same one.' (Crystal Stevenson / American Press)
4/5
Swipe or click to see more
The left section of this three-piece bookshelf built in 1890 once belonged to famed Blue Dog artist George Rodrigue. Corey Chauvin is restoring it for its new owner, who lives in Sunset. (Crystal Stevenson / American Press)
5/5
Swipe or click to see more
Corey Chauvin said he's constantly learning and teaching himself new ways of restoring historical pieces. He keeps a copy of 'The Furniture Bible' handy for reference. (Crystal Stevenson / American Press)
Corey Chauvin has made a career out of reviving vintage wares and breathing life into sometimes forgotten pieces of history.
It's a labor of love, and is something Chauvin does not foresee ever growing tired of.
'I have a background in carpentry and remodeling,' he said. 'Growing up my stepdad did remodeling so all my life I was always around it. I started laying flooring when I was 14 or 15 years old and I always puttered around with woodworking and furniture and building.'
His business — Father and Son Creation — came about by accident just over two years ago.
'We started building little knick knack stuff like shelves, planter boxes, cooler stands and then someone I built something for asked me if I repaired furniture. I said, 'Yeah, sure.' '
The customer said his wife inherited an old dresser that had been her aunt's. Made in the 1930s, the wife couldn't bear to part with it, but it wasn't exactly usable either.
'Still to this day, that was my favorite piece I've restored,' Chauvin said. 'I brought it back to him and he said, 'I have several more pieces for you.' That's how this all started. It just fell into place.'
Word got out about Chauvin's skills and now his shop is filled with furniture in need of repairing and scraps of wood for carpentry projects he is building from scratch.
Alongside his 15-year-old son, the pair diligently scrap away broken veneer and recreate missing or broken pieces of furniture to give new life to historic pieces.
'I'm kind of a history guru and I love the challenge of restoring pieces that were made with tools we don't have anymore,' he said. 'Back then they didn't have stains. They used teas, coffee grounds and the sun to stain wood. Phillips headscrews weren't invented until the 1940s so pieces made before that mostly used flathead screws. And before that, they used hand-cut nails. That's when you get into the 1700s and 1800s. The stuff they did with what they had is astonishing.'
Chauvin is in the process of restoring part one of a three-piece bookshelf built in 1890. The owner said the bookshelf had belonged to famed Blue Dog artist George Rodrigue, who kept it in his New Orleans studio.
'They didn't have power tools, saws, nothing,' he said. 'Yet the piece is covered in inlays — which are incredibly hard to do even today. It was all carved by hand.'
Chauvin — who does not use chemicals or paint strippers — said he is scraping the original finish from the shelves using sanders and wooden blocks. The new owner wants a natural finish on all three pieces.
Chauvin said he's always learning and developing his craft.
'With antiques, if you mess up you mess up bad,' he said. 'If you ruin the finish, ruin the wood you can't just go find another one. I do a lot of research before I start a project and develop a plan of what the customer wants and what's possible.'
Chauvin said the process of restoring antique pieces is becoming a lost art. 'There's people who do woodworking, there's people who do furniture but there's not a lot who do antiques anymore,' he said. 'Part of the reason I wanted to start this business is to teach my kids how to do it, and keep them away from too much time with technology and apps.'
He said his son is getting the hang of it, but is fearful of making mistakes.
''You're going to,' I tell him. People ask me if I mess up. I say, 'absolutely.' It's part of learning. What do you do when you mess up? Learn how to fix it. I've never destroyed a piece, but I've messed up, I've broken things, I've had to remake things. It happens. But each time I learn how to fix it.'
Chauvin's favorite wood to work with is red oak.
'You can do a lot with regular plywood, too. You can use red oak or maple, both of which you can get locally,' he said. 'I'm big on local. I'll pay more for local over ordering. I'm a local business so I want to buy all I can from local businesses, too.'
Another piece Chauvin is restoring is a bar built in the mid-1800s in Lebanon. It belonged to the father of a local family who brought the piece with him when he moved to America. Inside the bar's top lid is where bottles and shot glasses are kept. It is lined with glass and the lid has a mirror. Inside the bar's lower cabinet is a turntable and radio — both of which are powered by light bulb electricity.
The piece survived a hurricane but has some water damage to the outside doors. It also has sun damage from when it was left outside to dry while the storm-damaged home was being repaired.
'This was the father's prized possession. Every weekend, if they had company over, he would put on his records. They were all in Lebanese so nobody could understand them. He would serve liquor out of this cabinet. The family wants to keep it as original as possible. They only want to replace what we have to.'
Chavin said this furniture is one of his 'research pieces.'
'I have to replace the veneer top so I'm trying to find the exact match. Yes, we could totally strip it, add a new finish and make it look like the day it was made but all the character and charm would be gone.'
When an antique piece is restored, there is no better feeling, Chauvin said.
'When you spend days, weeks, even months working on it and then it's done, I hate to see them leave sometimes. If I could keep everything, I would keep everything.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
American Press
24-07-2025
- American Press
Sulphur's culture, identity on display in ‘Daddy War Bucks'
Filmmaker Jake Abraham introduces his short film 'Daddy War Bucks' during a screening in Texas. The film is set in Southwest Louisiana in 1951. (Special to the American Press) Twenty-year-old Jake Abraham has entered the film festival circuit with his 19-minute short film 'Daddy War Bucks.' It's an actor-driven chamber piece designed to hold attention through performance and script rather than spectacle, Abraham said. Set in Sulphur 1951, the film follows two mortgage bankers embroiled in a 'scheme' to repossess an elderly man's home. One is the boss. The other is his conflicted subordinate. As the film unfolds — through charged dialogue and quietly escalating stakes — something darker bubbles beneath the surface. 'Daddy War Bucks,' filmed in 2024, is Abraham's second short film. He grew up in Allen, Texas. Though he has no formal film training or education, he jumped into the film industry a few months after graduating high school with his 2022 short film, 'Best Played Loud' — an exploration into the 1960s musical transition from folk music into rock and roll. His tangible experience extends to his work on the set of bigger productions, like the CW series 'Walker.' But he has been making videos since his middle and high school years. He and his friends would spend their time creating videos for YouTube, but he realized filmmaking was his passion when the hobby became a priority. 'All you need is a camera and a couple of people to help you out, and you can really make whatever you want. And at the beginning, they were, you know, of course, really bad and very amateurish,' he recalled. 'We wouldn't get something right, we wouldn't get something done, and everybody would say, 'Oh, well, that's OK.' And then I remember thinking to myself, 'I want to get this done. Like, I really care about what this thing is going to look like'.And that was something that kind of revealed itself to me, that I wanted to take it more seriously and pursue it in a more formal manner.' Now he runs his production company, Mausoleum Films. He and a crew of about 25 filmed 'Daddy War Bucks' in Texas last year, but the film is set in Southwest Louisiana. Most of his father's family is from the Sulphur area. Abraham wanted to honor an area with personal meaning to him. 'I think the whole state of Louisiana is extremely fascinating, and we go frequently. And I just love the culture and the identity that it has. And I wanted to explore it through the lens of a period piece,' he said 'It's set right after the Second World War and is about a group of disillusioned individuals in the workforce. And it kind of reveals itself to be a family story by the end of it. In that way, it becomes really kind of personal.' It's no easy task to tell a complete story — one with a beginning, middle and end — in under 20 minutes, Abraham said. It's even harder to craft a short, complete story that emotionally involves the audience, but that it was he worked to achieve with 'Daddy War Bucks.' 'I didn't try to just make it, you know, a moment.I tried to make characters and a story that you could follow and invest yourself in and leave you with something to think about when it was over.' Abraham is personally inspired by directors like Ingmar Berman, Stanley Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson. But, the first step in becoming a filmmaker is to 'find what you like to make and stick with it.' The next step is to not rush the filmmaking process. 'It's easy to get lost in certain aspects or forego certain aspects … and I find oftentimes that if I'm going to see it on screen, or hear it on screen, I want the most detail and attention paid to that thing. Because that's what's going to make the film resonate. That's, that's what's going to keep it on film forever, essentially.' Abraham plans to produce a feature-length film after getting a few more short films under his belt. And while 'Daddy War Bucks' isn't available for streaming yet, it will be screened at film festivals this year.
American Press
24-07-2025
- American Press
Marshland Festival is back: Annual celebration packed with star-studded lineup
Rusty Metoyer will rock the Marshland Festival stage starting at 9 p.m. Friday. (Samantha Henry Photography / Special to the American Press) The Marshland Festival is this weekend in the Lake Charles Event Center. The Louisiana-focused festival will hold two days of food, music and family fun. Doors open at 4 p.m. Friday. General admission is $15 on Friday and $20 on Saturday. Tickets will be available at the door both days. This year's music lineup is filled to the brim with talent — and the music won't stop all weekend long with guests such as Keith Frank, Jamie Bergeron, 'American Idol' runner-up John Foster and Dillon Carmichael — just to name a few. Come hungry if you're looking for good food. The festival will have plenty of Louisiana cuisine to cure one's summertime blues, as well as arts and crafts for sale. There will also be games for children to enjoy, as well. Gregory Gray, president of the Marshland Festival Association, wants families to come out and have a good time while supporting a great cause. The festival was formed in 1989 to benefit the youth of Hackberry. When the festival started, it was held at the Hackberry Community Center and they would use wooden pallets with plywood on top of them as the dance floor. 'Back in the day there wasn't much here in Hackberry for the youth to be able to raise money, so they made this organization and the money each booth makes is theirs,' Gray said. 'It's come a long way. We used to put crabpots in a pond next to the Hackberry Community Center and we'd have contests throughout the day. As (the festival) grew, we went to Burton Coliseum. Now we're at the Event Center,' he said. While the festival is now in Lake Charles and has outgrown the Community Center the cause is still the same as it was in 1989. Everything goes back to the youth – Hackberry. Gray said popular food items from previous years will be available — such as crawfish pistolettes, shrimp on a stick, brisket and, the biggest seller, the ribeye sandwich. 'The ribeye sandwich is on French bread and the bread is toasted and the ribeyes are cooked right there at the festival,' he said. Various vendors will also be at the festival to sell arts, crafts and homemade preserves. The booths will include, but are not limited to, jewelry, woodworking and purses. Gray's personal favorite is the woodworking booth. 'The music never stops, we have two stages so when one band is setting up another is playing. There's no slowing down from it,' Gray said. 'It's a good outing, it's family entertainment and if it's raining this weekend you have somewhere to go and you're going to see some good entertainment.' The festival will begin at 5 p.m. on Friday and 11 a.m. on Saturday with the doors opening one hour prior to opening on both days. There is no fee to park but the Event Center does have a clear bag policy in place.
American Press
21-07-2025
- American Press
Malcolm-Jamal Warner, 'Cosby Show' actor, dies at 54 in Costa Rica drowning
Malcolm-Jamal Warner played Theo Huxtable on 'The Cosby Show." (Special to the American Press) Malcolm-Jamal Warner the actor who played teenage son Theo Huxtable on 'The Cosby Show,' has died at age 54 in an accidental drowning in Costa Rica, authorities there said. Costa Rica's Judicial Investigation Department said Monday that Warner drowned Sunday afternoon on a beach on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. He was swimming at Playa Cocles in Limon province when a current pulled him deeper into the ocean. 'He was rescued by people on the beach,' the department's initial report said, but first responders from Costa Rica's Red Cross found him without vital signs and he was taken to the morgue. Warner created many TV moments etched in the memories of Generation X children and their parents, including a pilot-episode argument with Bill Cosby's Cliff Huxtable about money and an ear piercing he tries to hide from his dad. His Theo was the only son among four daughters in the household of Cliff Huxtable and Phylicia Rashad's Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom, and he would be one of the prime representations of American teenage boyhood on a show that was the most popular in America for much of its run from 1984 to 1992. He played the role for eight seasons in all 197 episodes, winning an Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a comedy in 1986. For many the lasting image of the character, and of Warner, is of him wearing a badly botched mock designer shirt sewed by his sister Denise, played by Lisa Bonet. The 'Gordon Gartrell' shirt later became a memeable image. Anthony Mackie wore one on 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon and the profile picture on Warner's Instagram shows a toddler sporting one. Like the rest of the show's cast, Warner had to contend with the sexual assault allegations against its titular star, whose conviction in a Pennsylvania court was later overturned. Warner told The Associated Press in 2015 that the show's legacy was 'tarnished.' 'My biggest concern is when it comes to images of people of color on television and film,' Warner said. 'We've always had 'The Cosby Show' to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that, that's the thing that saddens me the most because in a few generations the Huxtables will have been just a fairy tale.' Representatives for Cosby declined immediate comment. Warner later appeared on the sitcom 'Malcolm & Eddie,' co-starring with comedian Eddie Griffin in the series on the defunct UPN network from 1996 to 2000. And in the 2010s he starred opposite Tracee Ellis Ross as a family-blending couple for two seasons on the BET sitcom 'Read Between The Lines.' He also had a role as O.J. Simpson's friend Al Cowlings on 'American Crime Story' and was a series regular on Fox's 'The Resident.' His film roles include the 2008 rom-com 'Fool's Gold' with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. A poet and a musician, Warner was a Grammy winner, for best traditional R&B performance, and was nominated for best spoken word poetry album for 'Hiding in Plain View.' Warner was married with a daughter, but chose to not publicly disclose their names. Warner's representatives declined immediate comment.
