Old Furniture - New Story

Many of you are aware that we were gifted almost all of the furniture we currently have in our home. Indeed, the only furniture we actually bought for ourselves were our two bookshelves of which we were in desperate need. And, even these we decided to buy fresh from the carpenter. We decided to sand and stain them ourselves and save about $300 in the process. Did we have any idea what we were getting ourselves into? Nope! Did we know it was going to be a lot of work? Yep! Would I want to do it again? Nope! But would I? Was it worth it? Most certainly!

These bookshelves are the result of many, many hours of sweat and shivers (it was very cold outside!). Our apartment neighbors couldn't believe that we were bringing out more furniture (we had just finished our dresser and chest of drawers) as it was on the verge of November. The days and nights were getting steadily colder, and we began having problems with the overcoat starting to freeze and solidify. We had just about had it with these shelves, when we finished! Casey and I both agree that we will treasure these shelves because of all the work we put into them. On top of that, we dipped our hands into a new trade of sorts, and learned a whole bunch in the process.

Here are the results of our labors. Aren't they beautiful? I think they do the job quite nicely.

Prior to working on these shelves we decided to strip, sand, and restain some of the furniture that was handed down to us. One of these pieces was my old dresser. I've had it since my grandma gave it to me as a gift from her antique shop. It was originally painted white with purple lilacs and green leaves. I'm kicking myself now that I didn't take a photo of it before we stripped it. While I liked the paint job in my younger years, I couldn't very well see Casey thinking it was beautiful, too. Plus, it didn't go with our bedroom scheme. So, here's the "before" photo after having stripped it:

Here is what it looks like today. All stained and working as a table for our sacred space:

Lastly - this is my favorite piece! My grandpa gave me a chest of drawers that was originally my Great Grandma Grace's. The story goes that her father made a chest of drawers for each of his daughters. Originally, it was stained a dark mahogany, but after years of use, it had inherited this color:

I personally liked the color, but it didn't go with any of our other furniture. Plus, I wanted to restore it to its original beauty. This was my labor of love. This was my favorite piece to do. It must have had about four layers of paint - white, yellow, green, gold, I counted my way through as I stripped it all off. In the dozens upon dozens of hours I spent on this chest I thought often of my great great grandpa. If he were here, would he be pleased that I was trying to restore it? How many hours had he spent making it? I imagined him carving and cutting the pieces of wood. It's a very intricate piece. What a treasure I have! Finally, after many layers of Citristrip, and sanding it came to look like this:

And in the end, we stained it the same color as the rest of the furniture, and back to its original stain. The knobs are the same, except they were spray painted silver. They are a temporary fix until we buy new knobs - I just need to decide what will look best with the stain. Any ideas??? I'm thinking something dark...

These projects took up most of September and October, and I am so grateful that they are finished! It's time for this furniture to begin their new story as part of our family.

Now I can snuggle up inside our home. It's on to making Christmas gifts, dusting off the keyboards (both computer and piano), and pulling out that sewing machine I have no idea how to operate. This winter is going to involve, oh, so much learning!