Saturday, September 20, 2008

Antique "Finds"

Remember yesterday when I told you about going to the auction and that I purchased two old dressers -one that even has a matching mirror?

Ok, granted these items are going to require probably a whole lot of elbow grease and hard work to strip them, sand them, refinish them, but today I went out back to where my son-in-law currently has these items sitting -under the cover of our canopy tent -and took some pictures to post here of them.

These are far from the best pictures -no two ways about that -but the intent here is to just give you a little bit of an idea as to what these items look like.

This one is the one in better condition of the two items. The way Bill has them sitting out back, I didn't have room to back up to get a better view of the entire dresser -just this much of it. The top of it is not white as it appears in this picture though -it's actually the same color as is the front of the dresser and the legs. The legs on this are really neat too -curved and makes it look more like a small buffet as opposed to a bedroom dresser type item. When my son called home today and Mandy and I were telling him about my "antique" purchases, when I described this item to him and especially the legs and the glass, sort of a crystal-like, pulls on the drawers, he thought it sounded like a pretty neat item to him.

Here then is the other dresser and the mirror too. I had no way to prop the mirror up to show the scroll stuff along the top edge so had to take the picture with the mirror laying down, facing the sky. Hence, you see the tree branches overhead playing "heavy, heavy hangs" over this stuff. This dresser -and the mirror -are both in dire need of a whole lot more work than the other item is. The wood top of this one has dents or little gouge marks in it, plus the paint job is really yucky now too so I foresee this one taking a lot of work to get it to look half-way decent.
Here's a partial side view of the green chest. It has, I believe, three drawers, nice and deep ones too and it is probably about 36 inches from one side to the other too. So, a decent size overall.


Here's the mirror which, as you can see a little bit of the scroll across the top -not much, but a tiny bit anyway.
And here's a bit of a closeup view so you can see what I mean about how marred the top is on this chest too.

Both may mean a lot of work to get them stipped, sanded and refinished but still, for only $3.00 for both chests and the mirror, I don't see how one could go wrong with them then, do you?

4 comments:

terri said...

$3.00???? Wow! That's a steal of a deal. I would love to get my hands on something like these and refinish them. I can't wait to see the finished products!

Mary said...

Jeni,

Beautiful buys and a real bargain to boot. The first one looks in good shape. Be sure to test to see what kind of finish it has before starting to strip it.

The second one just needs the paint taken off and a little sanding. Neither of them will be a major task - at least that's the way it looks from here.

I enjoy refinishing furniture. I can't wait to see photos when they are all refinished.

Take care and enjoy your day.
Blessings,
Mary

Sandi McBride said...

I love them...can't wait to see the finished items, it'll be well worth it...I'd stay as close to the original finish as I could...I love the bow front dresser with the curved legs...
hugs
Sandi

fermicat said...

I have a friend who bought an old chest like that. She stripped and painted it, and added a faux finish to the top. Turned out so good, everyone was always asking where she got it. It looked so professional.