This past summer was one of the best summers I've had in a long time. I always enjoy summer, but this one was packed full of all my favorite things, and I'm confident I didn't waste a minute of it. My days were spent enjoying family, weaving, sleeping, reading, photographing, playing and traveling (I have pictures of my trip to NYC to share with you soon). I grew some food, caught (and missed) a plane by myself for the first time, and acquired some fabulous new furniture.
And now, four months after my summer vacation ended, I've finally managed to clean my bedroom enough to photograph that fabulous new furniture. (Bad house blogger...)
Feast your eyes on my new treasure up there. Isn't it beautiful? This furniture is great just because its shape and style, but it is extra neat-o because it belonged to one of my favorite people ever.
When my grandma passed away in 2009, all the furniture in her home was given out to the kids who needed it. My college-aged little sister needed a bedroom set, so Papa's set went to her. I really wanted it, but I already had a bedroom set that had belonged to Rand's grandpa, and he didn't want to part with it. So basically, I was stuck with a set I didn't like.
I painted it and added DIY leather knobs, you know the story. Even though I like how that other set turned out, it still doesn't measure up to Papa's furniture, so when my sister decided to upgrade to other stuff in her home, I snagged it. Our old set has moved on.
Unfortunately, Papa's set showed signs of living in a college student's apartment. It needed a little love.
I really didn't want to sand down and restain this set. The odds that I would get the stain to match perfectly were slim, and also, I just don't like it. I prefer the original, even if it's imperfect. In order to revive, but not redo this furniture set, I dug around for Morgan Satterfield's great post on refreshing old wood furniture.
Side note: Does anyone know what happened to Morgan? She's disappeared from everything, even her online store. I don't know her personally and it's none of my business, but I miss her.
Anyway, I followed Morgan's directions to the letter. I also switched out the itty-bitty knobs for some bigger, louder ones. Two original knobs were missing and the drawer pull from the middle drawer was gone, so I just replaced all those places with my new knobs. I like how it looks cohesive and a little quirky now.
Rand likes all the drawer space. I like the mid-century shape and beautiful wood. And that it was Papa's. And free. Win/win on this one.
I have to say I am so amazed that in this day and age that Morgan Satterfield was "allowed" to vanish. What a crazy mystery! I person with such a huge online and offline presence, just disappears and other than lots of people asking around, no one that knows her will give an answer. I think the mention of honoring someone's privacy is rubbish when they themselves worked so hard to put themselves into the public consciousness and on a daily basis bring us into their lives, to then just accept not knowing what happened to them. I am kind of pissed. The right thing to do in the least would be to tell people that you had a personal problem that has caused you to have to withdraw from your public like. At least a response.
ReplyDeleteAgain, how crazy to just be able to disappear in this manner in the internet age.