Monday, October 10, 2016

The Eastlake Antique That Was Being Obliterated With a Sledge Hammer


So one fateful day...  Mom and I were driving around in our little village of Parma.  Not just 'cuz... but 'cuz it was village garage sale day.  So naturally when we came to a house with furniture scattered all over the driveway, we assumed they were part of the sale.  But NO!  Much to our horror and sheer astonishment... there were people.  With sledge hammers.  Destroying gorgeous antiques!!!!  AHHHHHHH I can hardly think about it.  What happened next is a little blurry in my memory but I think I ran up the driveway like a phsycopath yelling STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPP WHAT ARE YOU DOINGGGGGGGGGG.  They looked totally annoyed at me... and barely hesitated before the next drawer from a beautiful desk got smashed to smithereens and tossed into the back of a pick up truck.  

Mom and I surveyed the remains of several former beauties and tried to regain our freaked-out composure.  I convinced them that if they were just taking it all to the dump ANYWAY, and if I could be back in five minutes with my own truck...could I please try to salvage a few things?  It was too late to save all of this beauty - it once had a third piece that went on the sides and up tall behind the cubbies/drawers (see those pegs on the edge where it sat?) but I still thought it could be salvaged and fixed up, whole or not.


Without the back piece, I couldn't keep the cubbies and drawers on the desk because it left an open space on the desk behind it and the drawers stuck out back too far and were left exposed.  Hopefully you can follow a little bit of what I'm trying to describe here.  If not, just trust me when I say it wouldn't work to keep the awesome cubbies on the desktop, dog-gone-it.

The top is really cool and slides out.  That made it much easier to work on!  I sanded it all down... but wow - it had some major carvings and grooves that were just plain ol' too deep to sand off.



I decided to paint the middle black to try to hide some of the craziness that was going on, but really wanted to have some wood for a richer two-tone look so I stained the outer edge with Minwax Dark Walnut.


Here you can see the big open gap in the back of the desk!  I found a board and cut it to size with one of my besties - my miter saw - and painted it black.  Yes, I really love my power tools that much.


I secured it with wood glue and a few nails from my other bestie, a Ryobi battery powered nail gun.  YES, they really do make such a thing!!!  And it is fan-double-tastic!!!  Understatement.  Ryobi, you really should be paying me to advertise for you like this.


I love how that part turned out - phew!  Kind of one of those things that has you scratching your head but seems to work out in the end:


Then there was the problem of no drawers.  Those were all in little splintered pieces in the back of the truck.  I don't even want to think about what they were laying next too.  Sniffle, sniffle.  Well shucks, we've conquered the "missing drawer" problem several times here on Kammy's Korner, so that really wasn't all that difficult.  I took one of the dividers out to make it a larger cubby, and then cut shelves to take the place of the drawers.



The open spaces under this desk make the perfect book shelves!


Gotta love the detail of this Eastlake style:






 While I was cleaning up the wood and wiping off all the spider webs, I noticed on the back of the bottom right "cubby" the words "Leslie, Michigan".  Well, I sure couldn't paint over that!  Leslie is a town not far from us.  I left the wood "as is". :)  It matches the top that way, too.  Too bad I couldn't keep the look symmetrical as the left side didn't match.  Drat.


One final shot of the before and after:


And while I debate about whether or not I want this Eastlake beauty-turned-rustic to stay in my possession, it is for sale at the Parma Antique Mall.  So hurry and grab it before I decide it needs to stay in my living room and go get it back.  I can do that, you know. ;)

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2 comments:

  1. Desks all over are about to lose their drawers... this idea is sooooo decadent!

    Featured you this weekend's DIY Salvaged Junk 350. Thanks for linking up!

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  2. Great job!!! I love how you brought the desk back to life!!!

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