Hubby and I have always collected antiques and when we moved to the condo twelve years ago I was so tired of them. I just wanted them gone. Exit vintage, enter French Counry.
And I love French Country, I’ve always loved it and I’m not tired of it, but when I see pictures like the one above, Joanna’s House from The Fixer Upper, it makes me long for all things vintage again. This show also makes me long for fainting goats and chickens, but it’s not to be, there will be no more houses to renovate, no more dreams and plans for restoration, that ship has sailed.
But wait, has it really? Not quite, we’re not finished yet. Because of the popularity of sliding barn doors and yours truly watching way too many episodes of The Fixer Upper, I talked hubby into putting a door on a track to close off the den. The grandchildren sleep in there when they visit, it would be perfect to block the noise and it would be fantastic! So the hunt was on, and it didn’t take long for LC to find the perfect door on Craig’s List. Even more perfect was the price $30. Sounds like a deal, right? Well, not exactly.
Now, I know you’re thinking, “oh my” that’s pretty rough. And it is, but hubby is a miracle worker. It has great bones and I have no doubt that he will restore it to it’s former glory.
He just bought the track for it to slide on, oiled bronze, that’s where the cost comes in. But I paid $30 for this, remember? And he’s going to have the word ANTIQUES painted vertically in the middle pane, that’s more money, but it’s going to be great when it’s finished.
So did that satisfy my need for a little home improvement project. Oh no, not at all. When we were at the lake this fall with the family, the house we rented had a wonderful old industrial warehouse cart that they had refurbished and used for a coffee table. I was in love, it was just so cool and so I’ve been searching for one.
Last week in Heavensville, a large furniture company, Karges, who had been around since the turn of the century was having an auction and they had 100+ of these old industrial carts for sale in this huge old brick warehouse. We went to the preview, it was cold and damp in that old building, but we checked them all out, took pictures, I especially loved one that had been painted and the paint was all peeling off. We didn’t however have a tape measure, and we came home and decided that one of these would just be too big for the den, LC thought it was 3ft. wide, 48 inches long. So the day of the auction we decided not to go. It started at 9am and by noon I was in a tiz. You know how you just have that nagging feeling that you should do something, well my gut was telling me we were making a big mistake not buying that cart! So poor suffering hubby, knowing that they wouldn’t have sold it yet, decided to check it out online and lo and behold, they were having an online live auction. Since I had taken a picture with the item lot number on it, we didn’t have to go down to that drafty, cold building, we could just bid ahead online. So we did, and all afternoon we watched things sell. It was so much fun, just sitting around in our cozy house, drinking hot tea, watching things sell. Cart after cart after cart sold, the prices were great, they were selling for $100 to $150 apiece, they would sell them in lots and you could have your choice.
We put in a bid of $160 and when the time came, sure enough it was sold in lots with your pick. Well, it sold for $110, and I was sure we didn’t get it since we weren’t there to bid on it in person, after all, this was our first rodeo with bidding at a live auction online and we weren’t quite sure how it worked. And after it sold we heard the auctioneer say, “oh, they only bought one, just the painted one.” Hot damn, we got it after all! And when we picked it up, he took a tape measure with and it’s not 3 ft. wide, it’s 2 ft. wide, so it’s going to work easily.
For now, it’s sitting in the garage next to the door, but we’re having a blast of winter this week, five inches of snow last night and frigid temps all week, so it’s going to have to warm up a bit to work on our projects, but oh, it’s so exciting. We both can’t wait to see what the finish pieces will look like.
Above is a picture of the top of the cart that I took at the auction, and you’re probably looking at this and thinking “law-dee, that woman has lost her ever loving mind.” Ok, so it’s a little rough, okay, so it’s a lot rough. But thats what I want, a primitive look. Oh quit rolling your eyes and thinking, “um-hmmm, it’s primitive all right." Hubby will sand the paint off even more, stain it, give it a few coats of polyurethane, clean and restore all the iron wheels and it will be awesome.
Here’s one exactly like ours that’s been refinished, and you’re thinking, "no way that piece of crap in the picture is going to look like this". But remember, hubby has the magic touch. Ours will look like this, except with the painted top, and we will stencil Karges Furniture Co. on the side of it. It’s gonna be fantastic and I’ll show you the finished product.
That’s not all of the projects we’ve been working on, but that’s another blog entry, the rest of them. Check back, I’ll be posting more soon...
