Hiya from Bris-Venice

I'm Lisa, and I do computers. My partner is Nik, and he prefers wood, in a very experimental and non-trained way.

We're here because we're out of our depth. Yes, I know, Brisbane has been underwater. And that includes my grandparents furniture from the 1920's which was in my parents house.

So, in the last week or so, we've had armies of volunteers, helpfully hitting drawers with heavy objects in attempts to get them open to remove muddy clothing. We've watched beds bashed into pieces to get them through doorways just to remove the carpet from the rooms. Then we've seen Rosenstengel pieces tossed onto the garbage pile on the footpath.

At first we looked at the carnage and thought that we may as well wave farewell to the furniture. We didn't have the skill, time or storage space for such a huge job. Then, we went into rescue mode. Nik dragged every bit he could find off the rubbish pile and carted it home. We googled a bit, then Nik washed it all down with a bleach solution, and left it to dry.

We now have the restoration project from hell, but the main thing is that we don't want to wreck otherwise salvagable pieces through our ignorance.

We have to play with: 1920's silky oak bedroom suite (wardrobe, tallboy, double bed, bedside table, dressing table), and a 1920's Rosenstengel single bed and matching chest of drawers with mirror.

I'll move to the restoration forums now, and we'll have *plenty* of questions as the furniture dries out, and we have to decide what to do next.

We can't afford to have it all restored professionally (not that many large pieces!), we're not particularly antique lovers, or restoration buffs, but we definitely don't want to trash it without at least making an attempt to save it for someone to love in the future.

Cheers, Lisa