Junking Jackpot and Coolest Industrial Find!

I hit the jackpot yesterday! A junker/picker that lives near me has a warehouse FULL of crap! Loads of it! Stuff that people leave on the side of the road, yard sale crap, about everything you can imagine. Unfortunately, he's selling almost everything because the landlord is forcing him to move out. They're moving the warehouse to a different location and in its place they're putting in a parking lot for a new bar they're building nearby. There are TONS of bars in this area, not sure why they need yet ANOTHER one. And of course, once the parking lot is completed they'll make you pay for parking. Lame! I felt pretty bad for the guy so I didn't try to haggle with his already good prices. But because of him, I can now claim that I have the BEST industrial find of the year. But that can wait until the end of the post, first I'll show my other neat finds.

A colorful vintage metal suitcase, an antique hardware box, and a really nice side or coffee table with muscle-y legs. It needs some tightening and gluing where the legs meet the table, but that won't take long to fix. The school desk was a previous estate sale find in case you're wondering.

Now for the close-ups. The red and light blue slightly rusty suitcase is lined with a light red and white fabric inside. I forgot to take a picture of the inside, but I'll share one once I've cleaned it up a little. The guy who sold it to me said it had roller skates in it when he found it. Not sure if it was meant to be a storage box for skates, but who cares! It looks neat to me!

The hardware box with the company name stamped on the side still has its top and opens and closes without a problem. It needs a little dusting, but otherwise it's in great shape.

The coffee/side table has great details and a nice little drawer with cute brass knobs. I love that it has chunky feet, but the spindly part in between has a few thick areas of wax and glue on it (looks like there were a couple cracks that had to be repaired in the past). I'm going to refinish and restain the top and I'd like to do the same for the rest of the table, but we'll see how difficult it is to sand everything off. I may have to resort to painting it because of the previous repairs. And these pictures were taken sideways, so ignore the horizontal trees in the background.

And now for the amazing ALL TIME COOLEST industrial find of the year! A large 10 bushel vintage Dandux canvas cart with wood and steel frame (the vintage Raleigh bike next to it is my husband's).

Do you know they're selling smaller versions of these Dandux carts RIGHT now at Restoration Hardware for $129-229? And yeah the RH ones have a cute little pocket and a divider in the middle, but this is vintage! Only warehouses use these big guys. I'd really like to keep the cart for my future laundry room or as storage in my bedroom, but it may just be too good to keep if you know what I mean. It may be the reason I move into a booth at Grace Hart. It looks like they have a space opening up soon and the owner has mentioned that it might be a good idea to have me move into it. I don't know if I will have enough inventory to fill it or replenish it, but we shall see.

For now, I'm going to leave you with an amusing picture of the mail we received today. Guess which piece of mail is mine???

If you guessed Men's Fitness, I don't think we can be friends.

Linking to:

The most popular dresser in blogdom

I finally bought a new piece of furniture today! It's the classic French dresser that everyone has already redone, and now Lovely Beasts is taking it on! It's curvy and beautiful with ornate handles, but completely dated by the yellow and gold.

I cleaned it off with Krud Kutter and I'm hoping to start to paint tomorrow, but I won't touch the top just yet. Unfortunately for the dresser, the top is covered with laminate. After searching online for ways to remove it, I've come to the conclusion it's way too much work and won't produce the proper results (the glue stays in the wood grain and is virtually impossible to get off even with a ton of sanding). So I have a plan for the top! But need to buy some materials for it first. Can you guess what I'm going to do??? To be continued...

Waiting for the good stuff

Here are a few more shots of the French-style coffee table after adding one more coat of stain (three coats in all) and two coats of Wipe On Poly. I was going to leave the stain the way it was, but noticed a couple of smudges (probably from my fingers) and decided to slap one more coat to even the top out. I think the wood looks even richer now.

I'm bringing it to the shop tomorrow afternoon. Sadly, I still have not bought any new furniture. Today I dropped by Goodwill and there was nothing but junk. I may have some luck on craigslist but that all depends on whether people get back to my emails. Hopefully I'll have a dresser and a chair or two coming to me soon. Until then, I'll catch up on everyone else's blogs to see what they're working on!

Lovely Beasts made its first sale and it's a BIG ONE!

Can you believe it? It's happened! I consigned my refurbished furniture for the first time on Friday and I just made my very first sale. Can you guess which piece sold? Before I tell you right out though, I'll share with you how I became a consignor.

A few months ago, I went into Grace Hart & Co. and mentioned to the owner that I was interested in their consignment process and had a few pieces of furniture that I was working on reupholstering and refinishing. I also told her that if they ever needed help at the store, I would love to work there a couple days each month. The owner briefly went over their contract and told me to contact her once I was ready to consign with them. She also said she could probably set me up with working a few hours in the store and would call me when she had more details. Now I never got a call, but that's okay. I'm too busy these days working on my own projects anyways!

Fast forward to last week, I finally some pieces ready to sell and gave her a call. I told her she probably didn't remember me, but mentioned our previous conversation and said I was interested in becoming a consignor. Surprisingly, she did remember me and said I had perfect timing. They were in need of new furniture at the store. She told me to email her pictures of my items and come up with some prices. A few days later she gave me a call and said she really liked my furniture and to bring them in as soon as possible. She also told me that the prices I provided were right on with what she was thinking. This totally boosted my confidence!

So on Friday morning I brought my furniture in to Grace Hart & Co. and signed a contract to consign my pieces. They mentioned the furniture would likely be set up later in the day or on Saturday morning. Of course I was curious about how the pieces looked in the shop, so I went with my mother-in-law around 4pm on Saturday and immediately saw my Frenchy upholstered chair, mirror, and side table displayed in the front window.

It was so exciting! They did such a great job with the location and the display. We hurried inside to find my other stuff. In the front they had my Frenchy cane chair tucked into a cute matching desk (the desk wasn't mine but it looked good together) and in the back they had my vintage crate scale. I forgot to take pictures of them, but I did take a picture of the dining set that was also in the back. This is actually the first time I got to see the whole set together because I had stored the table and chairs in two different places.

I walked around the dining set to admire it from all angles and took pictures with both my cell phone and my mother-in-law's camera, hence the difference in quality in the two pictures above. After a few minutes of ooh-ing and ahh-ing over it, I noticed this!

Eeeeee! It was on HOLD! It went on hold at 12pm that day. It wasn't even in the shop for more than 12 hours. I was so psyched. Someone liked my restored/refurbished furniture! I was on a high when I left the store, but told myself to not get too excited in case the person decided not to buy it. It was enough for me to know that someone was interested in the set.

Now on to today! I "happened" to be in the area this afternoon and checked the shop again to see if it was still there, and it was gone! My Blue Boy dining set was SOLD! I'm so happy and so relieved. My hard work and intuition on the set (as well as the fabric I used to reupholster the chairs) paid off. Yippee!!! 

I told myself I couldn't buy any more furniture until I successfully sold something, so guess who's out on the prowl for new stuff?! Finally I can buy again! It may take some time though. I dropped by an estate auction this afternoon but walked away empty handed. The starting price on the furniture was just too high. I think it has to do with going to auctions near downtown Houston, I need to go to the outer cities and I'll probably get better deals there. I also stopped in a thrift store and looked around yard sales today, but had no luck. Hopefully this week I'll find a few good deals and get more stuff sold at the store!

Sigh, what a wonderful day!