Through six layers of old paint I sanded, scraped and rotary wire-brushed this piece back to it's original sheen.  I went through the light green to a gold to dark brown to dark green to white and gray.  Underneath lay copper, brilliant, shiny, beautiful copper.  I decided to keep some of the old paint on near the edges to show it's history and maintain its old look.
 

The top view at the start of my refinishing.  You can see the layers of paint showing through. 


A work in progress.  Shows one panel nearly completed.


All complete!

The routine is the same—a delightful one for me.  I get to see the transformation of a rusty unworkable item into a dull metallic shiny usable one.  The turn from trash to useful in the spin of a brush, or scrape of my sandpaper.  Under my hand, they transform. 

I love refinishing stools.  They are useful, small, and something people can enjoy. Practical pieces.  Here's one I recently picked up, and the process of turning it around. 


Getting off the first layer of rust.  Makes a big difference.

 
Using my rotary wire brush to de-rust the edges of the top.

This one began a few years ago, when I found this cabinet, gosh, don't know where now.  Massachusetts, yes, that was it.  I immediately saw it's potential and fell in love.  I think I'm better at picking antiques than mates by the way.  They (the antiques) usually do what I want, and turn out how I like, where the men, well...they just stay rusty and dusty and dirty—just the way they are.


Here's the cabinet way back at the beginning, right after I brought it home. 

After carting this piece around, fully refinished, touching it up after it got drizzled with paint from being in a Manhattan work-in-progress show room, I brought it with me to Florida and to my recent show.  The West Palm Beach Antiques Festival: www.festivalofantiques.com/ (a plug for it. Come! I'll be in the Feb show too).

Well I am happy to say that this piece received a new owner and the show and is going to stop being carted around (by me anyway).  It will be part of a wonderful historic home's decor.  The couple who purchased this bin also bought one of my refinished typing tables to be the base for the cabinet to make it into a desk.  How clever.  I always saw this cabinet as a table top—one with great built in storage and a very cool look for the right nook. 


The finished product.  Lookin good metal cabinet! Enjoy your new home.

I brought in the new year, 2010, with a busy weekend of pushing and hustling my goods.  Set-up in West Palm Beach, Fl (I escaped for the winter) the crowd was pretty good.   I have tons of new stuff and was excited to start selling.  The set-up was new years eve and happened to take me till 6:30pm to unload three van loads and set-up.  Needless to say, knowing I had to be there at 8am new years day, put a halt to any crazy celebration plans I was going to have.  I still managed to have fun, and make it to the there plenty early. 

The warm weather in West Palm Beach turned chilly and brought the beach-goers inside and to the show.  I didn't mind a bit.  At the end of the weekend though I still had two van fulls to take home.  I may be investing in a separate trailer to pull all my stuff to shows. It is not fun to load and unload twice just to finish up.  But I am still fairly new to shows and will learn and adapt as I go along. 


Here I am in my booth, day one of the three-day show. 


A closer look at my new collection of vintage blenders. 

Oh the joys of new tools! Christmas came with heavy, shiny fun—literally with a giant ratchet and wrench set, compliments of my father.  I think my older brother was secretly jealous. I had become the tool guru in my family's younger generation.  I got the cool stuff, the manly stuff and was proud to show it off.  I let it's big case sit gallantly in my brother's California living room till the very last hour before packing. 

I  carried the 30 pound set that would be the key to cracking the cage on my latest refinishing project.  My new tools were divided amongst my checked and carry on baggage to distribute the weight, just squeezing the large plastic case in. Security had a field day, removing each and every sealed baggy of parts, along with all of my personal items. They rescanned about four times till they were satisfied. I yelled to the scanner man what exactly he was looking at, sweetly of course, but he continued on his search. I think he was surprised to find this much hardware in a girl's bag.

I watched in dismay as the TSA attendant attempted to repack my bag. Grimacing when he finished and was unable to come close to zipping it. I regained permission to handle the bag and put it back in the painstaking order it had started in. Each item a puzzle that would only fit one way.  Getting it back to NY without any of the items being confiscated, I went about putting it together. I called my Dad twice during this process unsure what went where. Each baggie was full of what should have been an orderly arrangement of bits. Instead, they mixed different measurements together for the three gages of ratchets, making it a 45 minute process to complete. Looking at it all put together, it looks much easier than the big empty case and the daunting assortment of baggies clustered beside it. This picture might make it look small, but it is much bigger in real life.

I pressed each piece into their place, lining up the right ends, showing off the sizes and double checking my work.  I sent a victory picture to my dad, boasting my slow success. I queried him as to why each piece only "set" in it's place, rather than "locked" into place. It just didn't seem very secure. He warned me NOT to open the case upside down, as each piece would spill out. This was the last thing I wanted. He continued that his old set has a big Sharpie warning of which side was the top, after a few surprise explosion openings, he learned his lesson the hard way. Duly noted. I kept the label on the front to serve as my warning. He later built a solid and beautiful rolling oak tool box to secure each tool with magnets and straps. It is brilliant.

So far I have picked out the right sizes on my first try, with a small celebration smile.  I think this is the beginning of a lifelong friendship with these tools. That is, until I upgrade to a bigger set and possibly make my own custom box for all of them, or convince my Dad to take on another project.

Antiques is one way I express myself, writing to you here is another. << MORE >>

My latest project has been restoring a 1960's electric fan. It started out pea green—a color that even your Grandmother would dissapprove of. I decided to strip it, the way I like to—by sanding. I prefer to leave the chemical cancer out of the mix and stick to some good 'ol fashioned elbow grease. << MORE >>

Welcome to my blog: a place where one gal shares her fun with antiques.