What’s your favorite yard sale or antique store find and how were you able to restore this item?
While everyone can appreciate the beauty of antique furniture and family heirlooms, these hidden treasures are often left abandoned until someone stumbles upon them in their garage or attic. What are some quick and easy tips for revitalizing the look and feel of these items?
Answers:
- My favorite was the base of an old sewing machine. Beautiful iron work with rosettes and leaves. My sis and I sanded it, applied a coat of anti-rust paint, painted it old gold and after that dried we applied a thin coat of dark brown paint and used old rags to clean the excess and reveal the golden color, so the dark brown accentuated the beautiful metal work. We used polished stone as a table top and we kept a silver tray with antique crystal glasses. Everyone loved it.
- I refinished a dressing table circa 1900-it had an ash body with oak and birdseye maple veneers. Someone had painted it off white with tacky gold accents. I bought it for $30 and spent about $40 more for stripper, stain, etc. It was neither quick nor easy but it sure turned out beautiful.Unfortunately I was young and poor and had to sell it later for $200. Wonder what it would be worth today.
- I LIKE BUYING NICE PAINTINGS WITH OLD FRAMING.BECAUSE ITS EASY AND FUN TO FIX THE FRAMING ON A PAINTING.
- Hey, I watch enough Antiques Roadshow to know not to do too much to restore an item... at least on my own. Nothing like a bottle of Murphy's Oil Soap or Saddle Soap to clean something up but not mess with it too much. Luckily, most of my estate sale finds have been in decent enough condition to not worry about having to do too much with them.Oh yeah... my favorite. Not actually mine, yet, but mom says it's my inheritance... It's a table and two chairs made from the root system of some tree that's grown in the Phillipines... the way the air roots grow, they just find a section that looks like it would make a good chair or whatever and cut it out... not too much else was done to the wood... one of the chairs needed to have another chunk joined in to make it balance right, but it just looks like a mass of roots or something...The varnish is starting to flake, so I'm probably going to have to have it sandblasted eventually and revarnish it...
- Which find was my favorite? Wow, that is tough as there have been so many in my 53 years. I am a thrift store junkie, a curb picker, dumpster diver (to a small extent anyway), have a built in antenna for garage sales, scour the free section of Craigslist numerous times a day, and belong to Freecycle.I haven't bought a brand new car in nearly 30 years. I buy my cars from police impound auctions--which is just one more place to turn someone else's discard junk into my treasure.But as for antiques--my favorite find would have to be a dresser I found for $5.00 over 32 years ago. It was uniquely shaped, but each drawer was painted a different color, and the frame another color. I painstakingly removed layer upon layer of paint. Fine sanded it and applied tung oil. It was bought more for the great price as I was pregnant with my first child and money was tight. The fact that it turned out to be a gorgeous piece of antique furniture was the icing on the cake.I still have this dresser to this day. As each grandchild is born they have used this very dresser in their nursery. When they reach 2 years old, the dresser comes back to me and awaits the next grandchild.Of all the moves this dresser has gone through, it remains unmarred and still has the original lock and key for the first drawer.Whenever I "re-new" an antique piece of furniture, I like to think about how the first owners felt when they first bought the piece. How much did they pay for it? Did they have to save up to buy it? It is interesting to find the pieces in antique catalogs (I have had the joy of doing this several times).I love saving old things from landfills. I love saving relatively new things from landfills. It is fun giving something a new lease on life.
- got two Lladro Statues at a garage sale for $3.00 each. And a first year issue Barbie in the the original box with the $1.49 price tag still attached for $4.00
- found a beautiful Diamond, Aquamarine and gold ring in a box of jewelry at an estate sale. It was covered in crud, almost as if it had been dug up and hastily thrown in the jewelry box. I rinsed it off and gently used a toothbrush to remove ground dirt. After a a trip to the jewelers, I found out that my purchase was worth much more than the fifty cents I paid for it! My wife really loved it. It turned out to be from the 1920s. My wife invested in a ultrasonic cleaner and stores it in her jewelry box. She also occasionally takes it to make sure the prongs are tight on the stones.
- I BOUGHT A SWEET BLACK VELVET BULLFIGHTER PIC FOR 50 CENTS. NO NEED TO RESTORE IT THIS SWEET ITEM WAS IN PERFECT SHAPE. MY SECOND FAVORITE YARD SALE BUY WAS A RIDING LAWNMOWER AND AIR COMPRESSOR WHICH I TALKED THE LADY INTO SELLING BOTH FOR 40 BUCKS. BOTH WORK FINE SHE WAS JUST SELLING HER EX HUSBANDS STUFF.
- It depends on how much work you want to put into it how damaged the item is and how much space you have. We bought an antique coffee table once that was already refinished. It was beautiful. I wish we still had it; we still have a picture of it though! You can email me and I'll reply with a copy of it as an attachment.We enjoy restaining furniture but our living quarters are in small apartments and the fumes can get pretty rank. One simple way to bringing new life to antique furniture and all sorts of items without getting your rags dirty is just to simply oil them. Fill in some scratches with one of those furniture crayons and throw a slipcover over an old couch. Get some doilies for the arm of the chair and some wine bottles into that old wine rack and it'll look new and loved again.But of course if you do have a barn or backyard you can sand & refinish in, then by all means do it! My favorite colors to use are oak, walnut, chestnut, and cherry.And go to more garage sales!
- My last yard sale project was with 4 metal wall hangings. They look like tin ceiling tiles. They WERE black and gold with flowers painted in the center of the tile. I painted them all white and then cut squares of decorative (scrapbook) paper to fit in the center of ea. These coordinating tiles are now displayed on a wall (once bare) in a four square arrangement.... and the best thing is that I can take the paper off with each holiday or season and have a totally different look!
