What A Find!!!

Recently, we were driving home from church one Sunday and were almost home when we passed a single pickup truck hosting a parking lot sale. As we whizzed by, I thought that I might have spotted a possible treasure. Like any sane woman would do, I yelled “Put on brakes. Turn around and go back! I need to stop back there for a second!” After some huffing and puffing, the hubby relented and did as instructed.  As we got closer, I could see that it was indeed a treasure. I quickly came up with my maximum bid and tried not to seem to anxious as I got out of the car. It was blazing hot and the people selling were packing things in the truck to get out of the heat. I meandered over to the treasure, glancing at a few other small items on my way. I asked the man how much he was asking for my treasure. He replied “I’ll take $20 for that.” Oh my goodness! $20!!! I wanted to ask “Are you sure you don’t need $45?”  But instead, I calmly asked, “Do you have a tape measure?” FYI …..I keep a tape measure in my everyday purse but so far I haven’t needed one at Sunday School! The man quickly whipped out a tape measure. 38”. I told him that I really needed something 36” but I thought I could make it work and asked the hubby for $20. The hubby handed over the $20 but informed me that the treasure would not fit in his car. I insisted that it would, be conceded that maybe it wouldn’t. I told the man that we would run home and get the big car and be back in 5 minutes. He asked where I lived and said he lived nearby and agreed to deliver it. He decided to stop his loading and follow my home right then. All for $20!!! I LOVE it!

Here it is in its raw state. I wanted to use it on the screened porch and didn’t want to spend a lot of money!
As you can see, it was quite dirty and had some damage to the veneer. It has two drawers and they both operate smoothly.








 





This shot is a little fuzzy but you can see how the veneer has come off on the corner of this drawer.

















After thoroughly cleaning the piece, I got out my Elmer’s glue and wood clamps. I used toothpicks to carefully get some glue underneath the loose veneer. Then I clamped it down until it dried.










This is a closer shot of the gluing process.

















Another shot of the gluing process. All of this gluing and drying took a day. Then I removed the hardware and sprayed it silver and I applied a little black paint to try to antique it a little.












This photo does not do justice to the hardware. It has a great relief on it with a little round pull.












I used a brush to paint it with black satin paint. It only took one coat and turned out great.




















Here’s the final product in its new home on the porch!  $20!!! I love it when a plan comes together!!!