buffets

we always have lots of buffets ....they started as parts of dining room sets in the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s....originally they had a matching table , chairs and china cabinet..... we get them in the rough and patch them up and give them a great coat of paint....

im always impressed with our customers uses of these peices....plasma tv stands, foyer tables, sinks, a dramatic focal point with a big mirror or picture..changing tables......they are so useful....

.we do both black and white...... but mostly black..or our off black...kind of an expresso color...... sometimes we get small ones .

..and if they have bad feet we might turn one into a real short one....

some have even had their top drawer removed to make way for the tv machines......

cottage style spindle shelf......

here we used old spindles to make a small cottage style shelf..sometimes we put old tin for the back....this one turned out very clean and white..it would look great in a sunny cheery room.....

....we have used old shakes for the roof and also old tin....this one has just a smooth board for its roof....
in the store we use these for all kinds of displays..we have them in dark grungy colors and prettty cottage colors and white.... they run from 2 ft to 4 ft tall..... and from 45$ on up to 80$

we get a lot of spindles in...old table legs would make a neat shelf too.... ..

do your own thing

i love all the parts and pieces of the old, junk, antique, world ...... its fun finding the parts to sell and so rewarding making the parts useful again, and i love the variety that is possible......you can paint a door serious black or foo foo pink...its up to you.....

................you can do your own thing...........

i love hearing our customers stories about what they did with what they got from us....like old doors...they have been menu boards in a fancy resturant.....foo foo backdrops....counters....hinged displays, screens, walls...hall trees.....it just goes on and on.... every person has a different idea....

i try and get customers to send me pictures of their projects for our pin up page....

and windows....they have been paintings...places for photos, see thru dividers, snowflake displays, quilt samplers... greenhouses...etc etc....

...

lots of parts of my world, and our store, are places where sanford and son could bump into martha stewart...farm auctions... flea markets, etc etc

.its a fine line between trash and treasure..... and our store needs the brave scroungers who will haul old house parts around or tear down an old barn, or salvage a truckload of windows with us instead of hauling them to the dump...

cheap thrills

we have lots of spots in the store with super cheap parts..... the 1$ box.......its full of junk jewelry and other real little things...it attracts lots of girls making their own projects..its down low back with the dishes.....

the half price room....full of all kinds of stuff, including , old sheet music for 1$, left over christmas, misc dishes and glass, mixed florals....discontinued things from our gift lines...damaged peices...1$ antique linens and doilies....we dropped this once and the complaints and grumbles from the customers made us rethink our position......its a big mess usually....

outside...we have lots of windows from 5 to 20$
glass blocks, from the 50s..for 5 $
old horseshoes for 2$
old doors...15$ to 25$...lots out there, lots of farm stuff too like buckets and pails and ladders etc etc
the rough room....full of as found furniture and parts...if we got it cheap you get it cheap....
..
hankies 1$

we restock the half price rooom all the time...
www.greenoakantiques.com

trash to treasure this week

this week we made jewelry posts made from old bed posts and added hooks..i saw this idea in a friends shop..so handy for jewelry or anything small like ornaments.. ..old beds are so cheap...nobody wants full size anymore...and they have great parts for trash to treasure.....
also got in 2 counters, one huge , 8 ft long, with tin on the front...
the counters sell from 280 to 400.... the posts from 30 to 70..

i picked up the angel at the big extravaganza fleamarket in springfield ohio last fall ,its just under 3 ft wide... a buddy named elaine and i were lost and looking for something and bumped into these, from a neat old guy with no catalog.... i want more if anyone has any for sale or knows where to get them please let me know.....she is big and made out of wood, sometimes the eyes are glass....... at home i had the carpenter make this...old dresser mirror posts on the side....we put one ontop of a door cupboard too but its gone.....

see lots more on our site
www.greenoakantiques.com

the foo foo room

we just got back from market and have lots of great things coming in for the foo foo room...
rose pictures,
lots of florals, nice garlands and boquets....at nice prices too...
romantic signs
hydrangea wreaths
pretty cards,
pink and green birdhouses,
quilts and tablemats....
. the next few weeks....plus a nice big pink cabinet for some lucky girl..
.lots of white buffets and small tables too..
shabby cottage lamps
a big white harvest table, amish made with our old legs, and matching chairs....
.. the foo foo room is so girly and romantic and its the favorite spot for lots of customers..

i think most women have some spot where they can go kind of wild in a fluffy foo foo kind of way....
so watch for lots of new coming in in the next few weeks...

its cold here....

heres our poor tinman out in in the snow..... we are in the slowest month of the year...a good time for making plans, playing on the computer, thnking of warmer days....starting a blog!!

he is totally trash to treasure...i had a furnace guy make him for us....he is 14 ft tall..and hopefully tells folks pulling into the parkinglot that there might be some fun stuff inside....

projects

these are 2 of our best selling things .... the counter uses an old corbel, new tin, old molding on the base and beadboeard on the ends...each one is different ...some end up as counters in stores and some as kitchen islands..... the back is open, with a floor... these run between $240 and $400...some we make with old doors and they are bigger....

the showcase is new for us.......it has a hinged door on the back,,,, its made out of old windows.... this one is super tall with 3 glass shelves and ceder shakes for the roof..leftovers picked up at auction....the windows are from auctions too..... we have made lots of these...each one different.... they have a glass door on the back , another window....some get spindles,,.mostly we can pick from the old parts we have on hand....most are smaller....running from 180 $ to 300$...at christmas i set one up with snowmen and snow and trees and some animals.so cute!!
these sell to real people too...

our paint recipe....

we paint everyday... we do the dry brush technique.... mainly we paint one soid color on the peice, and then dry brush another color over it...i like the second coat to be real close to the first coat in color....
we use semigloss latex from walmart..
..the hardest part is deciding if the piece is paint ready.... if its real slick the paint wont stick...in that case we sand or put kilz on it first....
on the cupboards we build we just paint on raw wood....
this is renee, a great painter out in the parking lot...

my favorite paint job is what i call driftwoody or crabshakky....its like beachy..i love it on big counters, on our real big porch post cupboards, and anything that has big old parts... its kind of rough and casual but not really just for country......i get there lots of ways, but maybe start with tan, and dont cover the thing completely, then drybrush white , then drybrush pale green, then pale blue, then a little dark but not much...everyone turns out different and nice..its kind of watery and neutral......my good painter cant do it...too out of control and messy for him,..
.its usually my job.... and people either like it a lot or do not......

we get lots of paint from the mixed wrong shelves at the big places...we can use about any tan, grey pale green out there...and it saves us some money...

blue door trash to treasure

this is one of the easiest rehabb or trash to treasure projects.... its a blue door with 2x4 legs and a little ledge added... we added a gabled roof....this works great as a display...we pounded a nail in and hung a white mirror......we have made these with nice old table legs in the front, also have made them with 2 doors.... it was huge , but what a focal point!!

.this idea is all over the place...but the first place i saw it was on country business retailer forum...truly a good place to talk about stores... but you have to register.

.ours usually sell to stores for display...the single door pieces are usually between 170 and 200$ but you could buy all the parts around here for under 40$ sometimes way under....

big mirror

this is one of the big chicago mirrors that we rehabbed...mainly we fixed a few structural parts and patched in a little plaster replaced the mirror and painted.... it has seashells in the plaster above the mirror.... truly big and beautiful.about 8 ft tall....in the mirror you can see other parts of the room...
this sold right away...
slightly under 1000$
probably saved from the wrecking ball somewhere in chicago..