Please Learn From My Mistakes

Well, I hope everyone's week is going well.

I thought I'd share a little of my knowledge learned the hard way in re-furbishing and re-purposing vintage & used furniture.  I recently shared some sneak peeks of a piece I am working on but didn't tell you what it was.  It is an antique vanity I picked up at a good price but it needed a LOT of love.  Let me tell you when I saw this piece I just had to have it I had always wanted one and just knew that lots of other people would to and I just knew it would sell quickly.  I was sure I could fix it right up. Yeah, right up. Sigh.

I'd like to point out first that I am not in the restoration business I do not restore pieces but re-furbish them and the following piece would have taken quite a lot of money to restore if it could be restored it was in very bad shape.

Here's the lesson don't ever let emotion rule your choices when buying to re-sale.  Look the piece over is it sound? How much work would it require? Is it something people are looking for?  How much money would you have to invest in getting it in a salable condition? Will it take more money and time than you could get selling it?


So now I'm going to share the before pictures of the vanity.  It is not finished so I can't yet show you after pics.  I am waiting now on my chalk paint to come in so I can paint it.  Here they are:

 As you can see a lot of the veneer is loose or missing.  I wish more of it had been missing because even removing it the way the pros do is very time consuming.

At one time it had some lovely wood onlays on the feet but they were all broken except for one and though I had pieces they were in layers as if the onlay was made in layers and was almost impossible to re-apply.

This is after I removed not only the layer of veneer but the one underneath it. I had to remove both layers because a lot of the second layer was missing also. Whew!

Although the mirror has most of the onlays missing the mirror is intact as is the mirror that goes in the center of the vanity.  The mirrors being intact was one of the reasons I purchased the vanity even though it was in such disrepair.


So, my point is that the vanity will come out lovely when I finish it but I've had to put too much work into it to make a decent profit.  My emotions won out over common sense.  I would keep the piece but unfortunately I have nowhere to put it.  Don't get me wrong I would do one like this again but only to keep not to sell.  I have thoroughly enjoyed working on it.


I hope you will keep this information in mind if you are just starting in the re-furbishing business as it will save you a lot of time and money.  I can't wait to show you the finished product so please keep checking back with my blog to see the pictures.  


I would also like to say how much I appreciate my followers.  Thank you for your interest in what I do.