Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Old Buffet


OK...this antique buffet has a story behind it. I found this piece almost a year ago. I was strolling thru the thrift store and I was just about to leave disappointed that I hadn't found anything and when out of the corner of my eye I see this "beauty".....I gasped or maybe even squealed and literally ran over to it. I asked the manager..."Is this for sale?" "Well, we were going to send it back to our warehouse, its in too bad of shape to sell" "What!!" I said..."oh no, no, no! I MUST have it" he said, "OK" and I'm pretty sure I hugged him and told him I loved him!!

I brought it home, and although it did have all of its original hardware, he was right...it was in really bad shape. I parked it in the garage and that's where it has sat for a long, long time. FINALLY, I put my big girl panties on and decided it was time to TACKLE the beast! I consider myself a pretty handy gal, I can pretty much fix anything I NEED to, but what have I gotten myself into???
 
I started by removing all the hardware and gluing all of the wood that over time had started to separate and crack. Then I filled in as many of the holes & cracks with wood filler as I could. The ones that were too bad were just going to have to add "character." Once it was "repaired" ( I use this term loosely) I tried to figure out what color I was going to paint it. This is always the hardest thing for me because color makes or breaks a piece of furniture. So after much deliberation, I decided on gray. Not just any gray will do, I got out my measuring cups and decided I needed to "create" the right gray. After a few minutes of "a little of this and a little of that" the perfect gray was achieved.....After a few coats of paint, some slight distressing (not that it needed much help in the distressing) and a coat of wax.....HERE SHE IS!!! BEAUTIFUL huh??
 
I LOVE this piece of furniture! Like, literally LOVE this! The kind of love that made it almost impossible to sell it. Luckily for her, the first person to contact me about buying it,  happen to be a friend of mine so I "let" her buy it and take it home. Only after a thorough check of her background and references ;-) she assured me it would be loved and well taken care of, so with a tear in my eye she left me. They say that there is really only one true love of your life.....Is this true for furniture too? Time will tell, maybe tomorrow I will stumble across another love!
Happy Painting.




2 comments:

  1. I've had a few pieces that were hard to part with too. What a BEAUTY!!! You did a fantastic job with it. I'm currently working on a similar buffet that was also in baaaad shape. Amazing what a good coat of paint can do!!!

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  2. I have this exact buffet at my house inherited from my mil. Hope I can achieve that beautiful color on mine.

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