When I was young, 16, in the sixties I learned how to refinish furniture. My grandmother had given me an old walnut table, and I stripped it and put a new finish on it. I gleaned ideas from antiquers and it was a joy to take something so bad in color and take that off and find the grain of the wood.
In a small town of Murray, near our farm was an auction and my mom surprisingly bid on two different pieces and paid about six dollars each for them. This chest of drawers and another low chest with a mirror. They were both oak and that became my summer project. I never dreamed that I would have them some day. I thought older brothers would claim them or something would happen to them before I could ever take them home with me.
Yesterday, my wife and I put in a rough day of throwing things away and going to the horrible landfill. It is like going to a horror film and the land is alien and scary. I had to back down into this location, down a hill, as it was muddy, then I had to drive back up the same hill to get out of the hole. The smell was beyond belief and the clay of southern Iowa was sticky and yellow and stuck to everything. They only good thing was that we brought back in the truck this chest of drawers. It is sitting in our art gallery right now and we will eventually move it upstairs.
When I was young, 16, in the sixties I learned how to refinish furniture. My grandmother had given me an old walnut table, and I stripped it and put a new finish on it. I gleaned ideas from antiquers and it was a joy to take something so bad in color and take that off and find the grain of the wood. 
In a small town of Murray, near our farm was an auction and my mom surprisingly bid on two different pieces and paid about six dollars each for them. This chest of drawers and another low chest with a mirror. They were both oak and that became my summer project. I never dreamed that I would have them some day. I thought older brothers would claim them or something would happen to them before I could ever take them home with me.
Yesterday, my wife and I put in a rough day of throwing things away and going to the horrible landfill. It is like going to a horror film and the land is alien and scary. I had to back down into this location, down a hill, as it was muddy, then I had to drive back up the same hill to get out of the hole. The smell was beyond belief and the clay of southern Iowa was sticky and yellow and stuck to everything. They only good thing was that we brought back in the truck this chest of drawers. It is sitting in our art gallery right now and we will eventually move it upstairs.
2 comments:
Ooh what a beautiful piece, I am so in love with it !
You have done a fabulous job at refinishing it, what a great talent you have...
If you have a minute, pop on over to my place I have left you a little something :)
I love this kind of thing and have often thought about trying Ready Strip:
http://www.asseenontvguys.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=54
It's not full of chemicals, so you don't have to use gloves and there's allegedly no smell...I'm thinking about hitting some garage sales and seeing if something can be salvaged for fun.
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