WORKING -- Furnishing face-lifts

-- Story by Andrew Glazer; photo by Marc Martin

HE IS

Breathing life into antiques.

ACCIDENTAL ‘RESTORIST’

Dennis Kiklas, 53, began refinishing and rebuilding antique dressers,

electric guitars, knife boxes, gargoyles, rhino tusks and dashboards more

than 30 years ago -- by accident.

He was in a rock ‘n’ roll band and needed money. So he started working at

a furniture restoration store owned by the father of his band’s bassist.

It wasn’t long before he realized he’d be spending the rest of his life

wisping light coats of finish with a camel-hair brush and delicately

etching natural-looking wood grain onto cigarette-scarred wood with a

razor blade.

“Actually, we’re getting less cigarette burn business now that

everybody’s stopped smoking,” he said.

MAHOGANY MAGICIAN

Learning to mix the right shade of finish from his paletteof

twentysomething shades of burnt umber did not come easily.

“It’s not like painting by numbers,” said his son and partner, Paul, 33.

“You can make billions and trillions of colors with those paints. What my

dad can do in a few minutes takes me all day.”

Kiklas said he relishes the projects that challenge him. He said Newport

Beach residents have recently taken a liking to steel office furniture

from the 1930s and ‘40s. But he needed to do his research before knocking

out dings and scraping away rust.

“I’m always looking for something difficult,” he said. “Something that

will make me look at a book or talk to some old guy.”

THE ‘GU’

Kiklas was nicknamed the “Gu” by fellow craftsmen. They used to meet at

his Logan Street workshop every Friday evening for drinks. When one saw

the diversity of objects Kiklas worked on at the shop, he dubbed him the

“guru.” Since then, they’ve shortened the name to “Gu.”

TIMES ARE A CHANGING

Part of Kiklas’ job requires him to anticipate changing trends. In the

1980s, the owner of an antique German grandfather clock asked him to coat

it with a yellow finish, a color popular in the day.

“I felt a little strange, because it looked so nice as it was,” he said.

In case the owner ever changed his mind, Kiklas pre-coated the clock with

a varnish which will allow the yellow finish to be removed.

RESTORATION FASCINATION

Kiklas’ workshop is an orderly mess. Five separate pieces of furniture --

all in various states of disrepair -- are spread out across the floor. A

water-stained dresser. A steel desk. But what stands out is a couch

mangled by its owner’s dog.

The striped gray upholstery was torn to ribbons. And its wooden knuckled

legs were gnawed and chipped and detached from the base.

“Sometimes I don’t know why anybody would bother,” Kiklas said.