Saturday 19 November 2011

Found Treasure

Ever have treasure just drop in your lap? It seems to happen to me on a regular basis. My wonderful husband used to call it junk when I first started this. Till he realized that not only was I turning it all into something beautiful and useful, but was making a bit of cash on the side. :) 
Yesterday I had to go into Sarnia and find some material to recover chairs for a dining room suite that I'm redoing. (found some awesome funky material that will be PERFECT!) Also found some wonderful stuff for that table turned bench that I posted about a couple of days back...
ohhh but we are getting off the subject of found treasures aren't we? 
So anyway........... driving back to the cottage (yes, snuck away to the cottage for a couple of days for some R&R. By the way, R&R doesn't seem to happen, told husband I need a cruise to really make me stop working..lol
Oh, back to found treasure. So I was driving and what did I see on the side of the road? A couple of chairs. 
Of course I had to stop and see if anything could be done with them. 


Look at what I found!!

Arm chairs. I know there is a name for this style, but I'm just going to call them the 80's sisters. The style is wonderful, but the colour and the material is all wrong. 
So I brought them in, cleaned them up, took the seats off of them and started work right away. 
Have I ever mentioned how much I love Zinsser primer? That stuff is amazing! 
So two coats of primer and then two coats of a very soft dove grey paint later.


I'm still in the process of finishing them. I have the material to recover the chairs, but my stapler is at home. So when I head home I will finish them off and show you. I think I should have them done on Monday. So stay tuned. :) 
Have a great weekend everyone. I'm off to an auction sale today. 
Going to see what sorts of treasures I can find there :) :)

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Vintage coffee table.

So my husband was being really nice to me (or he was really bored) and he started looking on kijiji the other night for a new project for me. Like I don't have enough to do (you should see my basement!) and he came across this old table. 
 This is just a picture since I'm sitting at work and can't take a pic of the one I now have sitting in my garage. 
This is solid, and I mean solid walnut. The wood is over an inch thick and HEAVY!
So now I have a table. First thought was, what a perfect bench. Actually my husband thought of that. I totally agreed with him. BUT then another thought came I know, dangerous to think. 
So now we are thinking of getting rid of those heinous  unique legs and getting other ones that are much taller, thus creating a hall way or couch table out of this fine piece of wood. 

Which way would you go with this? I'm open to all ideas. Ohhh by the way, that drawer does open and is a wonderful asset either way. 

Monday 14 November 2011

Antique Desk, finished.

Well it's done. :)
It's not perfect, but that's one thing I like about antiques, they are like people, not perfect but beautiful and totally unique in their own way. 
I love scratches and character lines, they show how well loved a piece is. 
Thankfully this one didn't have any of those really deep stains that are impossible to get out (working on one of those right now). 
So here are the after pics, I hope you enjoy them. 






 Anyone that knows me, knows I love to research things, furniture is no different. So I found out this piece is made of walnut on the outside, and mahogany and gum wood on the inside. The stain I used was a dark walnut stain, then a few coats of minwax poly to protect it. I love minwax, I've tried a few other brands, but this just seems to work the best for me. 
Ohhh I so wish I could keep this one. 

Thursday 10 November 2011

Antique desk

I'm about half way through a desk refinishing project, but I need some help. I'm wondering who can give me a bit of advice. 
I found this old desk at a yard sale. The guy I bought it from didn't even have it IN the yard sale, he had it beside his garage and was going to BURN it! 
I quickly bought it up and brought it home with me. 
Then did a bit of research on it since it was still stamped. 
This is what I found out. 
 Very cute eh? And actually it was still in very good condition. 
I'm just about done stripping it down. I'm going to stain it and bring it back as close to original as I can. 
As much as I would like to keep this, I'm going to sell it. BUT this is where I need some help. What would you price a piece like this at?



 These are obviously the "before" pictures. 
Stay tuned for the after. :)