Tea, Anyone?

Steven got me this gorgeous little hand-painted tea table and 4 stools, with birds and cherry blossom branches. The table top is a quite thick tree section, minimally milled, and the legs of all the pieces are stout with fat stretchers and bridle joints i think, each with a little hardwood peg or stay where the tenon passes completely through the tenon (wish i really knew the lingo for what those kinds of joints are... can anybody help me with that?). Each is a beautiful work of art:







Just like our current Dining Room table, which we bought 5 or 6 years ago to use outside, we are both worried about this thing decaying on the front porch and are already talking about where to put it inside. We don't really need it inside, the front porch is the perfect place for it. It has a thick layer of something or other (Steven told me the Chinese word, but we don't know the English word). Looks something like a thick gauche topped with lacquer, then the hand-painted details, and then layers of clear lacquer. A lot of it is cracked and peeling, through all the layers, and all of the legs are peeling at their bottoms. That's all part of the charm, but we want to stabilize the charm where it is now. Does anybody know what to do for a piece like this? We are loathe to use one of those super-duper self-levelling polyeurethane sealers... as we have no idea how it would react with the lacquer or the painted detail.

We also had a great time with our new friend Jamey who went with us to Yellow Springs, and then to Springfield to pick this up. It was quite a production getting it; thanks for helping Jamey!

Cheers thanks alot!

*We've whiled away quite a bit of time doing our Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, and Joanna Lumley impersonations... while watching a Jamey's stellar array of EVERYTHING they've ever made*