I was recently emailing a young lady that had alot of questions about restoring a horse drawn carriage that was given to her from a deceased friend. She wasn't sure what to do with it but knew she was in love with and wanted to restore it. I had been thru many a restoration project and wanted to offer my best advice and hopefully save her some time and misery. So the excerpts following are replies from me that I had sent to her in reply to some of her questions.
She had found me originally thru viewing my Waterloo Piano Buggy at my website: Vintage-Restorations.com
To Maribeth: Sorry but without the original manufacturers plate you can't find out who manufactured it and where. You must have the company name of who manufactured it and city and state. Save the old top and any old parts-you can get a new top- put the old stuff in a box where rats can't eat at the straw stuffing. If you decide you want to restore it then...Replace it with a new top from Justin Carriages at: http://www.buggy.com/ that's where I got mine done. You can get a whole new top frame or send him the frame you have if it's in good enough shape and get him to replace the top on the existing frame and ship it back. They do all kinds of restoration work and their prices are reasonable(I shopped around) go with them. They've been in the business a long time-I got mine done like 6 years ago. Tell them Ann Menke from Vintage-Restorations.com referred you. My husband Russ did do alot of the restoration work on our buggy himself - but Justin's Carriage did the top and seat. You can also get the seat done at a local upholsterer which I recommend as Justin's seat upholstery was not that great. He did a great job on the top though. I got mine with an oval opera glass in the back-which to me adds a hint of elegance to the buggy, so I do recommend it. Please check back for further excerpts of me trying to help Maribeth decide on whether to restore her buggy.Thanks, Ann Menke
I highly recommend looking at horse carriages that are already restored before taking on the time and expense of doing it yourself...you may find that you can get one at a very reasonable price already restored below and sell the one you were thinking of restoring.
