How Sweet it is...

To be loved by you...

I finally finished this vanity.  I think I repainted it 4 times before I was satisfied with how it looked.  I don't know what the deal is, but the wax doesn't do the same thing on veneer as it does on real wood and I am still learning how to adjust for that.   I am not very good at wax yet.  I really need to take an Annie Sloan Chalk Paint workshop at Robyn Story Designs.   That is what I am going to ask for for my birthday...

I really need a new laptop too...tho...but it would be so fun to take a workshop and really learn just what the heck I am doing!   I hope to get a little better at this painting furniture thing by the time school starts!   I will have more time to hunt for treasures too!  Right now I am pretty much relying on craigslist to find good items, but I need to be able to drive down to St Pete or Clearwater and scour some of the thrift shops down there. 

I need to have patience, which I don't have a lot of! 

I am Woman, Hear Me ROAR!

Ok its not really THAT big of a feat, but I just got this:

and it's an "antique"...but when I got it home I noticed a corner of the top was peeling off---ARRRGGGG---veneer!  YUCK!  I didn't look that closely when I bought it...I guess I was noticing the hardware was in good shape and it has good bones...so I pulled on a corner of the veneer--and a whole piece stripped right off!!!   I peeled and peeled and got that whole darn veneer off the top of the vanity/desk!   YIPPPEEEE!   It was pretty easy, except for sweating my tail off in my garage. 

Now the top is bare and ready for some fun!!

See the hardware is kind of funky!  I should have stopped at www.robynstorydesigns.com  for some new paint!   Oh, well, maybe it will be country gray just like everything else! 

To be continued...

What I am

I now know what kind of table this is:

Drum roll please.....

Its called a

Pembroke table, light, drop-leaf table designed for occasional use, probably deriving its name from Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke(1693–1751), a noted connoisseur and amateur architect. The table has two drawers and flaps on either side that can be raised by brackets on hinges (known as “elbows”) to increase its size. Usually provided with casters (it was often used for bedside meals), the legs of the common English versions, as illustrated by Thomas Sheraton and others, are supported or reinforced by X-shaped stretchers.

In the United States a distinctive type of support, shaped like a lyre, became popular toward the end of the century. It is also known as a flap and elbow table

Now I can rest!

I also can paint it since someone had already done the honors of sanding it down and the drawer is missing.  So even if it was worth a million, it isn't now!   

What am I?

Part of the fun of finding a "treasure" (or to some, trash) is trying to figure out where it came from, how old it is, who made it, and is it worth anything?  After a fun jaunt to the flea market with my girlfriends, I sat and stared at this little table I got for $5 (it seemed like a great deal at the time) and realized it is basically a Frankenstein of a mess of a piece of furniture.  Instead of being one particular type, it seems to be many different parts all throw together into one. 

A good place to start when you are trying to figure out a piece of furniture is to study the legs.  Googling "table legs" will bring up many different kinds of legs on tables so you can somewhat identify what style your table is.  This isn't foolproof for identifying the authenticity or age of something, but it will give you a start on the style, reproduction or real thing  (that is a whole other issue)... Queen Anne, Victorian, Louis xv, whatever...the legs are a great clue...in my case, the legs are straight with a long vertical lines carved in them...of course I can't find anything on the internet about that. 

Another clue to whether something is an antique or not is the hardware.  My table also has drop down sides.  That is popular on many antiques.  In the case of my table, the little swing out parts that keep up the sides are kept in place with two plain nails.  I am guessing the lack of real hardware indicates that it was handmade and not by machine.  The man at the flea market guessed it was made in the 1940s but who the heck knows if he knew what he was talking about.

What really confuses me about this table is the mixed styling.  The crossed supports on the bottom are quite fancy and perhaps were added later, since they look like they are machine cut.  To me they look victorian?  There are also little corner decorations that look victorian.  And then there is the rope detailing on the front and back. 

Someone had already sanded it down, so I guess there is no sense in trying to keep the integrity of the table up.  Maybe I shouldn't think so hard about it and just have fun painting it!!!

And to close, I would like to share the great Paul Simon's words:

"One man's ceiling is another man's floor"