Sunday, October 14, 2012

The Rat Dresser Makeover

This is where it all began... The story of Dumped and Discovered.  This is the first piece of furniture that I purchased for our business.

Meet "The Rat Dresser."  (Note: This piece was named before I started giving my treasures more glamorous names like Bertha, Bernadette, and Denny). 

Two years ago, Lola and I went to an antique store in a small town near our house.  While there, the sweet lady at the counter handed us a flier.  It advertised a "yard sale" in an old warehouse.  This was before our thrifting days "officially" started, but we decided to give it a try.  Needless to say... WE WENT CRAZY!  It took three car loads to bring all of our treasures home, and Mr. Dump threatened to call the producers of "Hoarders." 

Most of the pieces have been re-vamped and sold.  But this one.... This one almost didn't make it to the transformation stage.  This one almost got re-dumped.  I just couldn't bring myself to tackle it...  Until now...



This is what it looked like when I bought it...  I turned the top into a chalkboard long ago!  Click here to check it out...


This piece became "The Rat Dresser" for the furry creature that once called the bottom drawer home.  GROSS!!!  Like I said, we didn't know what we were doing back then, so I didn't think to check the drawers first.  All I saw was the $20 price tag!


Mr. Dump fixed this problem pretty quickly by cutting new bases for the drawers.  He didn't mind the task because he got a new jigsaw out of the deal.  While he was having fun, I tackled the sides with every cleaning product I could find.  Then I added a little color by painting the inserts.



You know I love paintable wallpaper.  Since there wasn't enough wood filler in the world to fix the drawer fronts, I decided to use this magical invention. (Again!)


This is what it looked like after a newly sanded top, painted drawer inserts, and my own special chalk paint recipe.  Click here to read about it!


Mr. Dump stained the top and added a few coats of Polyurethane.


The difference between the before and after stages were so insane that we had to take an in-between picture.


And now for the dramatic after...  Here she is sitting beautifully in our foyer.  Mr. Dump and Lola found the cool metal containers during a thrifting excursion while I was teaching - Thanks, guys!


No more furry creatures living here...

 

A close-up for your viewing pleasure...


This is the beautiful distressing on the sides of the piece.


I am officially in love!  This one is going to stay with me for a very long time.

Happy Junkin'!

Sarah

Monday, October 8, 2012

Denny - The Man, The Hutch

Cue the music from Sanford and Son.......
 

  

Dumped and Discovered is BACK!  We spent a very lovely weekend cleaning items/painting treasures/throwing out our backs, and we loved every minute of it.  Yes, Lola/Laura was in town, bossing us around. Can you tell? :)

Anyway, on to the featured item.  We found this beautiful art deco piece at a barn sale in DC.  When I say barn sale, I really mean BARN SALE.  I mean, there was a dirt road involved.  And we didn't find this piece in the front.  No, siree.  We climbed BEHIND the front row of junk treasures and carefully avoided the huge hole in the floor (yes, we were warned not to go back there, but we are nothing if not rule breakers).  In fact, this piece is named for the man who explicitly asked us NOT to climb back there - Denny.  Ah, Denny and his glorious muffintop.  Said with love, of course.  We adore Denny the man, especially when he gave us Denny the hutch for $50!!!  
 

Are some of you questioning our sanity right now?  Fair enough.  We may have questioned it ourselves a few times along this journey, particularly when loading and unloading this beast!  But she was worth the work, as you can see below.  Mr. Dump went after her with his FANCY new sprayer and some great gray paint.  For all you wood purists out there, please take my word that Denny needed a little paint on the barn, if you know what I mean.  Shout out to my girl Honey Boo Boo!

 
For those of you actually reading the words and not just looking at the pretty pictures, we asked Mr. Dump very sweetly to cut a new back for Denny and we loved the original hardware so much that we kept it.  Thankfully, the gorgeous mirror on top remained intact in the trip from DC to Charlotte, so all we had to do was clean that up.  We think she's a beauty!



Here she is in the booth, which has some other finds from our recent junk hunts.  We hope someone takes her home and lets her live in a place with solid flooring.  And no mice.  We will not speak of the mice again.


As an added bonus, here's a lovely cabinet found at an estate sale in DC.  Lola had the turquoise sprayer going, and I didn't want to risk getting a blue camera out of the deal, so I didn't get a before picture.  Sorry, but you've never seen how reckless she is with that thing (we only let her work on the small pieces.  Sad, but true.)

We made some great progress this weekend, so more projects will be shared in the weeks ahead!  I'm going to try to post at least one project a week, so thanks for hanging in there until Summer Sarah returns!

Happy junkin'!

Sarah

PS Anyone want to buy some well-loved but HUGE plants?  We have to evict some from the house, and thought our lovely readers might want the first shot at them.  Seriously, these things are huge, but really healthy and great listeners when there's no one else in the house.  Here they are, all lined up and waiting for their new homes!