Antique Inspiration

I love old things. I have a few pieces of furniture that I have bought from consignment stores, found in a little country antique shop or saved from a landfill. A couple of weeks ago when I went for my sketch walk one of my neighbours had a small cupboard standing at the road. Upon seeing it, I fell in love with the shape and the age of it immediately. I've refinished one of these once before and it can be a lot of work. I wasn't looking for more work BUT my niece and a friend of hers refinishes old things, giving them new life and reselling them in their business. I thought of her, and texted her a picture of it, noting that it was in rough shape but that I knew she could do something wonderful with it. As I thought, she wanted it. So I took my car up to the house, knocked on the door and asked the owner if he minded that I take the little cupboard. He said, " no problem" and helped me get it into the back of my truck. He told me he was keeping for his daughter, who just never came to get it, so out it went to the curb. He said it was from the 1920's. I can't wait to see what my niece does with it.

Well, then last Saturday, I was invited to the Christie Antique Market at Christie Conservation Area. I convinced my sister to go with me and we had a great time. I missed out on a really nice round aluminum table with four chairs. They were painted white and would have fit perfectly on my back deck and it was reasonably priced. When I got to the owner of the booth she told me it was sold a few minutes before. I shouldn't have thought about it so long!
However, I didn't leave empty handed. I spied a solid wood bookcase with a glass door on it that locked with a really neat old key. It was beautiful! Because it was a bookcase, it wasn't deep and would fit perfectly in my studio to hold all my fabric. Then, instead of taking all my fabric bins out from under my counter when I needed to choose fabric for a project, all I had to do was open the door.
With help from my sister and her husband, I got it into the house and down to the studio. I cleaned it out this week and today I put all my fabric in it. It's fantastic. A really good buy.