So, here in the northeast, the weather has been -well- weird. Saturday the temperature reached 60 degrees. In upstate New York, where January temperatures routinely are in the single digits, a 60 degree day is almost unheard of.  Regardless, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity.

It was, as I call it, an overalls day. When I am working on furniture, I often wear overalls.  Saw dust, primer, bondo, paint, wax, polycrylic, etc are all at home on my overalls.  Early Saturday morning, on went the overalls and the hair went into a pony tail.

Earlier in the week, I came across this piece:

Now, I know what you are thinking.  “OMG – what on earth are you doing buying  that piece of furniture?”  It is true, she isn’t exactly lovely.  I get it.  She needed some repairs such as securing a shelf on the interior.  She obviously needed new hardware, particularly for the doors.  However, the worst offense is the orangey stain that someone gave her long ago.

If you look past all her immediate flaws, you can see that she is an old beauty with really good bones and a ton of potential.  Admittedly, it might require a lot of squinting to see her potential.  It’s there.  Really.

When buying antique furniture, I almost always look for pieces made using pine, maple or oak.  These are my favorite woods to work with.  If you ever go to an auction and preview furniture or even look at furniture in an antique store, you will notice that many pieces are made out of mahogany, cherry, or rosewood. My experience is that the red tones in these woods are a challenge to work with.  They can “bleed through” on paint jobs, which can leave “pink stains” on your refinished furniture.  When you sand these other woods down, they often look a little pinkish in their raw wood state.

So, the fact that this little buffet was made with pine wood gave it an advantage.  Also, having had the experience of working with old pine pieces, I know with some labor (a lot of labor) they can turn into buttery, soft, beautiful pieces.

Saturday was the day, complete with overalls and pony tail, that I took advantage of the warmer weather to work in the garage and breathe some life back into this piece.  The first four hours were spent sanding off the terrible orange finish.  That just had to go. Amen.

Then the rest of the weekend, I worked on the structural repairs so she would function again. If you want to see the “after” check back on Thursday.  I will have a blog post with after photos.    Here is one more photo of the buffet as she existed when I purchased her.

Thank you for stopping by the blog today and checking out this corner of the internet.  It always makes me happy when people read about the projects at Sky Lark House.