Rescued, repainted curb find
I'm a curb comber.
Yep - the secret to my decorating style is out. I love to grab stuff off the curb.
If you came to my house you might find yourself describing it as "eclectic". Which is a fancy word for "nothing matches". Well, that's not exactly true - I mean it’s not a higgledy piggledy mess or anything. I'd like to think everything looks as though it belongs together.
OK, belongs might be a stretch. I'd like to think everything "works" together.
I lovingly refer to my style as "stuff from dead people". Almost everything I own came from either my dead relatives or someone else's via estate sales, St Vincent de Paul or the curb.
To date, I have bought exactly one couch, two wing chairs, and a variety of mattresses that were brand spanking new. Everything else - dead people.
Well - I guess some of them aren't dead. They maybe just cleared out a room.
But many of them are dead.
I don't sweat it.
So, earlier this week I was driving along my street and there on the curb was this oak pedestal table with an enormous pedestal foot and one leaf in it.
I was driving the two door sedan and not the Mini-Van.
Dammit!
I got out and gave it a once over.
Not great as it was, but some terrific potential if I painted it. But I didn't really have time in my schedule to go fetch the van. And, honestly, my house is getting too full and I don't even know where I could stash the thing until I could get to refinishing or painting it.
I said my goodbyes and drove off.
But it nagged.
Now the only person I know who has more "projects" sitting around her house optimistically awaiting their facelifts is my friend "Phoebe". (Not her real name - she has requested anonymity which I will surely honor.)
Phoebe's garage and basement are a testament to yes-aholic optimism. We're all sure we'll fit everything in somehow, somewhere, someday, aren't we? I mean that's the yes-aholic manifesto "I can do it - I'll fit it in somehow!".
So I found myself talking to Phoebe at 10:00 on the night of the table incident.
"I thought of you today, there was this oak pedestal table on the street and - "
"Is it still there?!!!!!'
"I don't know - probably - it was still there at five this afternoon with a bunch of other stuff piled on it - "
"Let's go get it!!!!"
"Now?!"
"Yeah - it'll only take 15 minutes - come on!!!"
Good as her word - 3 minutes later she was at my house with her van. (Habitually late for concerts and appointments Phoebe can really hustle when there's free furniture involved...)
Which is how I found myself, in the dead of night, beset by mosquitoes, taking boxes and a microwave and other sundries off of said table to get a better look at it.
"Oh, darn it! It's got a fluted edge!"
"This is a problem?"
"Yeah, I hate that kind of edge. And look - it's not old."
"Well, no, probably from the 70s - but it's still solid oak...."
"No - I'm going to pass. It kills me to leave it here for the garbage man though - who does that, I mean couldn't they at least take it over to St. Vincent's?"
"Well, we could toss it into your van and you could take it over tomorrow..."
And then my friend, the confirmed yes-aholic, took the first steps to recovery.
She said no.
This was such a personal achievement on her part that I decided to let the fact that we were going to let the garbage men take the table slide.
Besides - there were other headlights slowing down - chances are the table didn't last until morning!
Here are pics of some of my previous curb rescues - some I refinished, some I didn't, some are still waiting. Because somehow, someday - I'll get to them.
I swear.
Someone's old built-in linen cupboard
Fabulous old trunk that seems like rusted metal - I lacquered the heck out of it...
old chair awaiting facelift
Old table awaiting facelift
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