dont forget we are closeed thursdays....

otherwise we are open.. from 10 to 5....

4th of july we will be open 10 to 2..... after that you could call me.... if really necessary...

bloom where you are planted

road trip

we just went to florida.. and back in a whirlwind trip
....the driving part was interesting....especially georgia....it has tons of billboards about god.......and as many pushing adult stores....and spas for truckers,.. strippers on billboards...we dont have that in indiana.... ..
..
.and the poor trees...all the way down they were being torn up...plowed under , burned....pretty sad.... tennessee was the prettiest....it looked full and natural...
.the soil in georgia is a funny color...red!!!! how does it grow anything...?
it was really good to get back ...
and they did great at t he store without us....
in florida we saw my dad....and enjoyed the beach ...and got a lot of neat ideas for the key west room...
favorite breakfast...waffle house......
favorite bed ...hampton inn...
dh is very tekkie....and we of course have a gps device...it is so neat.. showing a great map of the road ahead.....and if he used his own judgement it said...make a u turn immediately....he chose garmin...

also we have xm radio...which is very nice....got to hear dylans show...and lots of news....and lots of music....

incoming

lots coming in now.....

*great big potting benches....with lots of archetectural parts ...great for store displays or for your conservatory...or a big wall

*** a darling white vanity

*rsprussia bowl

*about 10 pieces of roseville...some big ones

* nice old silk hankies

*walnut marbletop commode, fancy

*nice old marble fernstand!!!! top turns

*beautiful big cannister jars...new.

*just another day in paradise signs...

and lots more.....

a good weekend

this was such a nice day....we were busy and had lots of people and groups....lots of catching up , lots of juicy tidbits about ongoing dramas....

. we have been here for a long time and really know lots of our customers..we are a business , but the customers are more than customers...we get to share a little of their time and lives...some of these folks have bought and/or sold to us for 20 yrs!!! or more...;i know some of them better than some of my family...is that bad?

today it was just steve wade and me....and we were swamped...

we enjoyed

*the sisters who told me about serving lunch on the georgous haviland they bought yesterday...

.* the grandaughter of a big antique/junk dealer.... she loves lots of stuff too...she was telling me how it was hard to leave home and be in bare surroundings...her grandpa is a huge auction buyer and hauls it down to tennessee.... he and i usually fight over the junk boxes at auctions....

*and the retired shop teacher who taught one of our carpenters in adult ed..boy do we owe him a lot!!! .he fell out of a tree with a chain saw last year...... his big city daughter always comes here on her trips thru town...

*several people in their late 70s or 80s enjoying our lake manitou postcards...and remembering our lake from back in its glory days...and nice talk about my parents who lots of the old people knew...

then there were several groups who stayed a long time.or bumped into other groups,,,., the nice patient husbands... and old customers who had moved back..and needed a lot of furniture....neat new people who came in and were suprised.....

it was great...

then we had another storm...

saturday was scary....we are in indiana...and the weather has been dangerous....

yesterdays storm left the store in the dark for an hour....steve and wade dug out the flashlights...people were stranded in the aisles..one lady yelled help, im in the half price room and im afraid to move.........wade sold 200$ in the dark!!!

i was at an auction in a pole barn with about 200 people ..by myself......it went dark and soo loud...i was scared to death , just covered my ears and closed my eyes.... i got a fabulous load of stuff!! including a marble statue and a big marble pedestal....i may have grossly overpaid...not sure yet...

jon was down at julies store http://www.bellachicinteriors.com/ having a trunk show..they loved our furniture..... and it was neat for jon , meeting julies customers.... he had fun ...

all in all a great weekend...making me so glad im in the junk business!!!!

....

orphan ideas

....i get so many ideas and wish i could do them all........

VINTAGE ALTERED ART SUPPLIES.... i have al the stuff....pages from old song books, tonsof buttons, piles of sewing misc, all kinds of vintage scraps in the 100 yr old range.....
i see companies selling copies of old paper...and i have the real thing.... but no time and who knows if it would even work....

FLEA WITH ME... i would love to do this one....rent a big bus!! and take a group to a big flea market.like kane county or springfield or brimfield........and save tons of room on the bus for the stuff they find.....one of my favorite customers , favorite for being about the wildest woman in business that i know,, and thats saying a lot!!!! she takes a trip like that to paris ...and gets it all home for them...she invited me but i dont fly...

AMERICAN MADE..build a company featuring all american made stuff....i think the retail buyers are s o ready for this....the trick would be to get the prices where americans could afford to buy....i wouldnt be thinking art gallery prices!!!..i would aim for american made at affordable prices... i just dont get it..here we make big cupboards out of good wood for under 300$ so why cant more companies come up with good stuff locally made? we arent that special....and we do make money..... i would love to run a company like that, that reallly produced good stuff made here....i think the big companies have given up trying...

CRAFTERS FOR HIRE.... a company where you could figure out an idea and how it looked...and take it to the crafters and they would produce it for you....i would love that!! i have so many ideas so far over my abilities.... stuff i would love to see and sell but that i dont want to make myself....

TEACH A GRANDMA TO SURF.... this would be such a good girl scout project!!!!i used to have a troop.. the girls would teach their old folks real basic computer,internet, and how to email , just simple stuff that would enrich so many far flung families... i know a lot of women who would ,imho, love the internet if they only knew!!

furniture problems...

the worst thing is smell....if the furniture is really bad i suggest just leaving it....you can get rid of musty....with all the common ideas, febreeze, charcoal, bleach etc etc...

.. but the really bad smells will be almost impossible...here i mean cat or deep bad barn smells ,medicine smells sometimes....

another thing we avoid, if painting is involved, is furniture with formica tops....not sure how you would ever paint that and make it stick.....

another warning is about sets of chairs...so much can go wrong wtih them...just think of all the joints.... fixing all that on a wobbly set before rehabbing and painting is a huge job...

another really hard repair is broken out hinges.... fixing them can end up really ikky looking as well as possibly weak, where it needs to be strong.... sometimes we take the doors off in that situation...

another really bad thing is the live things...like post beetles..... if you ever see sawdust youve probably got something very bad..we take little holes as a sign of post beetles...and the dust as a sign of live ones....

then theres termites...long hollow trails......and of course cockroaches.....

and then dont forget silverfish...they sometimes turn up in old paper...little and you can almost see thru them...

back to structural problems....basically i try and judge the effort and hassle before starting ....anything is fixable of course....but some things just arent worth the work....i start with the finished price and see if we can get there easily.....i count the time.......

country french

look here for some high class trash to treasure!!!
http://euroantiquemarket.blogspot.com/
my customers know they could have found a lot of these things in various places around our store.... we get things from all over the world...we just never know when.....

i love her pictures...and how she puts it all together..im not sure what to call this style...but i like the pale barely there colors..and the wonderful garden elements...very inspiring!!!

we have been putting a nice french grey on some big things lately...it looks good on the big display cabinets we make out of old salvage..

..lots of my frenchy stuff goes down to atlanta ...i have a great customer who does a show there every month.... even my daughter has been interested in french for her store lately.... http://www.bellachicinteriors.com/

i love american primitive and the gaudiest french ....its so nice to have the store where i can enjoy both...

trey franceeee

look at all the haviland....with some plain old limoges thrown in..........and a happy customer agog at the pile!!! there is even a pancake server....
will it sell? do our new modern customers even know about haviland? one hopes...
we have about 80 pieces....price....3000$

furniture recipes..dressers

this is one of the easiest pieces to get...its part of a bedroom suite, this style is a dark wood, heavy veneer, probably from the 30s....very common ....

i dont feel bad painting these...they are more like used furniture than real antiques...around here in the rough, they are way under 100$..ck our rough room..

....the trouble is usuallly the drawers..... thats the first thing we check.....if they stick, it could be really hard to fix..sometimes its just better find a better dresser...

we use them with the mirror and without..

..if the legs are bad we cut them off...making a nice low chest..

we have taken the bottom 2 drawers out , leaving the legs, which makes a nice cavity, or ripped out the back too and made a neat vanity...

when we do white, we usually put the old fashioned glass knobs on...

if we had more time we could line the drawers with old wallpaper.....

sometimes we add carving on the front of the drawers....

then we judge the finish to see if the paint will stick....maybe we have to sand maybe just sanding sealer,,,usually these are just a brown wood....if its red mahogany then we cant paint white...it bleeds thru....,,,,,,,,

then we paint ...

white and drybrush another shade of white on top and seal and walla!!!! a pretty , useable piece....

these dressers run from

$170 to $230....

people this week.....

i hear a lot out there from my customers and suppliers out there on the floor....

a sad story...the logansport mental hospital is tearing down their beautiful old building....and not allowing any salvage ....the mantles, the beautiful woodwork, the windows the marble...all going to the wrecking ball....i hope this isnt true....

from below you know yesterday was awful...we worked like dogs all day.....we were mostly thru the day...had most of the furniture put away , had dealt with 2 trucks full,most priced and fluffed. and we were working on the harvest tables full of the beautiful rose limoge dishes......sorting the haviland from the elite ..trying to get it all on one table...... then just before 3, the brick guys wife came in the door...meaning there were 200 9 lb bricks to be unloaded.a truly horrid job..it was over 80 degrees......this was about the 4th load this week...and lisa had helped earlier..........dear lisa, was unpacking the dishes...and i said , look whos here...she innocently looked at the woman and said oh sh--!!!! it was pretty funny... it was 2 minutes till 3, her quitting time, so she lucked out.....

the other crazy thing this week ...was today....we are closed thursdays....this lady comes up to jons house..adjacent to the shop....she had been clear up into the awning , even tho we were closed, and wanted to buy a chime for 1$, that was the price....jon went out with her...and the chime was 100$$$$ and hanging on a 1$ hook..at least she didnt just take it and leave a dollar under the door.......

i was in the garden today and saw the semi of christmas stuff go by...they never listen...i told the company we are closed thursdays..

..lots of cars went by...thats really hard on me...the garden is wonderful this time of year...

trash to treasure garden

we have a lot for the trash to treasure garden!!!
for the funky /primitive/creative gardener, who needs cool stuff.....
a lot of the windows will end up in our projects..

the iron bed will probably end up as a flower bed...
we have a lot of sinks too, perfect for a potting bench....

and who knows where our big 5 ft roosters will end up!!

its kind of outsider art........

should be a wild one......

today should be total chaos....we got home yesterday with a truckload of furniture and 250 pieces of limoge and haviland.....lots of nice christmas and fall decorations...books, and misc....... all this is in the aisles and on the furniture and just flopped....

but, all jons furniture from nappanee is also i n the aisle, also about 4 cupboards are all painted and waiting to come out...and 2 big white buffets we didnt get put away monday, and the biggest and best mantle of the year, all done up from the amish.....

.not sure where to put the dishes, they are a rose pattern ...in the limoge set they are called elite.. bridal wreath, but im not sure what the haviland part is called...its almost exactly the same.....right now they are in their little dish zippered bags, made especilly for them....all this is covering/trashing 3 big harvest tables..

and my best furniture buyer is coming today....

and all the mexican iron didnt get priced...

its kind of a snafoo kind of day...

we are expecting a semi today or friday with a pallet of fall and christmas merchandise.....hope that doesnt come today....but friday would maybe be a mess too, we are maybe getting a big furniture pick up.....60 of our cupboards are going to canada!!!!

and we promised to deliver a big load of furniture to a new store in town..called twice white!!!! ...so it might be pretty bad on friday too!!!! in a good way ...

naturally, we dont know positively if the semi is coming or the 60 cupboards are going out friday.....so a few things are in limbo....

being a mother really helps...you are kind of used to doing 3 or 4 things at once ...and maybe can deal with constant change and chaos......

.luckily i have lots of help today....its really a mess....

furniture recipes..drybrushing

a lot of the stuff w e paint has surface problems.... we solve that by filling the depressions...like where veneer is missing on dressers......with woodfiller mostly, then sanding......but it will often show under a coat of paint..

..thats where dry brushing saves the day..

..we pick a closely related color to the base coat...and just drybrush it over the original color......walla....lots of problems covered, and a nice casual look....drybrush means take most of the paint off the brush then brush it over the surface....leaving lots of your first color showing...

to get a close color i like to add brown or white to the base color...then its perfectly related....i would not like a big contrast..

this piece, one of our greenhouse showcases....started out tile red...then we threw some brown paint in to the red for the drybrush coat...

chicago cabinets

these big guys we get out of chicago....the fanciest one is sold ...but we do have 2 others now....and more coming..........

they come the scrapper guys in chicago , ripped out of the big old houses...they were the pass thru or butlers pantry, that little room between the kitchen and dining room....they werent made to be a standing piece of furniture, rather they were part of the house........so they get torn out and come to us in rough condition , often with no backs , no sides, and no crown molding....... we take them to the amish carpenters....and they come back beautiful and ready to go back to work....they are about 100 yrs old and mostly oak......

we have about 3 more coming ....

the folks who have bought them just rave about them..... they are usualy huge and really make a room..... lots are just under 8 ft tall...

last year we probably had about 15 of them...they seem to be gettting harder for us to find now...

fun stuff around the store

around the st

furniture recipes

im new at blogging....but heres my plan.....this week im going to have furniture recipes....how we work on furniture ....how we rehab....how we decide

to me the ideal piece to pick is like this one...its easy to find, usually reasonable in price , not a good antique...

can you see it? its a depression era china cabinet without the big front door......this one had a bad door,so walla...its an open china cabinet....the furniture between the 1920s and the 50s is great ...there is a lot of it, its dark and unpopular so its easy to get.like in our rough room..and its still made out of real wood or heavy veneer....and it can be cheap....

first thing we do is

clean it up,

tightnen it up...jon does any repairs it needs...

then prepare the surface for paint..

.if its shiney we have to do something or the paint wont stick...or it will come off with the slightest bump..... so we have to decide what to do....the best thing is to sand the whole thing.then there is no problem.....but if the finish is already partly gone we also use liquid sander...which seems to work great.....and lots esier than sanding..

then we embellish!!! meaning wood appliques or in this china cabinet, nice iron corners ....

after that its time to paint..... if the piece was mahogany , or worse fake , dyed mahogany you have to deal with that....the red stain comes thru the white paint....so in that situation we go for painting it black....

then we add another dry brush coat of paint,,,then a coat of finish....

more later....

jons smalls...

jon gets out to buy more than me....and i tell him to get me more smalls..antique talk for not furniture...

so yesterday...

this is what i get...!!!

its a gigantic boars head..

.. hopefully someone will like it....i have a guy in mind....

not exactly what i need for the foo foo room!!!

but it will probalbly sell....

when the kids were little we skinned and tanned a big beautiful hognose snake once and a deer too..., we found the snake runover on the road..........and like most nature lovers/born collectors, we always drug home skulls or neat bones from the woods.... and fossils and neat feathers and eggs cool rocks, nests,,.... etc etc....whatever seemed interesting....

fun magnets at the store

i love these....and we should be getting a new supply in this week....

.. im a virgo...

one customer returned some magnets ...she had bought the zodiac ones for gifts and didnt realize she had picked the naughty ones.....

around the store

lots of neat stuff coming in now..
i love summer...
and wish i could go to more auctions.
.

...
.
.
my favorite this week, so far is the dress form..
.. its about 100 yrs old.. and so hard to find....weve only had 3 of these with the wire skirts...

lots more,.... roseville,
a few pieces of mc coy,
pretty plates, some old icecream chairs,
and 2 big chicago cabinets.... lots of furniture...

in new , we got lots of word plates back in..
.. and some more garland..

lots of good garden iron on hand..
the big arbors are good for weddings..
big load coming in this sunday. including some 5 ft chickens

also got some wonderful paving bricks...we unloaded them yesterday in 90 degree heat....they are the shiney nice kind like we used to have for sidewalks here in rochester..
ive bought about 1500, shold be coming all this week...
9 pounds each....4$..each
3$ if you take 100

night life

we get netflicks and its so great...one night we watch house of elliot and the next night the wire..they both kind of use the english language...

..house of elliott is beautiful...from bbc....all about high fashion in london before ww2...the flappers!!!

the wire is a lot better written and more dramatic , but this one is really fun too..kind of eye candy..... and the clothes are fabulous....also watched topsy turvy, about gilbert and sullivan.... love james broadbent!!!

after work we are so tired just vegging in front of the tube is nice....we have tivo too....so we rarely see a commercial....

love jon stewart too.....getting tired of msnbc,....

one plan is to take a boatload to england sometime....its kind of an old promise to wade.... when we get old.... we love gardens and castles, and steve loves golf ...so we might dump him in scotland......

other bbc we have enjoyed

midsomer murders

inspector lynley mysteries

and loved !!foyles war

and of course miss marple and poroit..

ebonics

we are watching old seasons of the wire...wow, probably the best show i have ever seen on tv.....we liked deadwood too but this is pretty great........my favorites are omar and bubbles....the characters are so well done...im so glad my buddy, a teacher in the inner city, talked me into watching it...

now on ebonics, i cant understand lots of it....and i hope obama doesnt start talking it!!! , a joke!!....
.imho, its horrible...what a big disadvantage for those kids if they ever want to cross over into what they call being an uptown n-----..

i was raised to never ever say the n word...it was wrong and i never thought it or said it...but hey!!! they say it all the time on the wire...whats the deal? lou dobbs even got in trouble for saying cotton picking mind....
not making much sense!!!!

whoever is working in the poor parts of any city has a huge job if the wire is any hint of the reality...i admire them a lot..

in the first years of tv...you never saw a black face anywhere...so rare then...
im for obama...but liked hillary too...

cheaper/greener/better

we know using antiques and used furniture is great............but just think, its cheaper/greener/better too....

a really a nice antique piece , even the real good oak from 100 yrs ago , even that is cheaper than most modern furniture....and if you like the furniture from the 20s thru the 40s , we get a lot of buffets and china cabinets from those decades....it can be founed really reasonable.....in the rough....here or at auctions or at the big fleas....

the harvest tables in the picture we make using our good 100 yr old legs, which jon finds in his travels, mostly from old damaged tables, and we take them to our carpenters, who can put it all together in to a big strong modern harvest table.... .. .and walla a great useable recycled table for around 400$....plus they are made right here in indiana...

.

if you can do a little work you can find all kinds of possibilities in our rough room.... good old stuff just waiting for a new life...and its not particleboard either.... http://www.greenoakantiques.com/

at home we have new appliances and new upholstry and electronics...and thats about it....everything else is old or used....you can go into about any style....mine at home is eclectic and early good indiana furniture ...i love early cupboards!!!

cheap thrills

so much is coming in right now..... lots of nice cheap primitive and rustic stuff....
. lots of chairs, and desks,
several table and chairs, rough room packed with reasonable!!!!antique furniture ..lots of bed parts,, ice cream chairs...
the little junk shack is filling up fast for the yardsale..aug 3....we hauled tools and several boxes of misc over there yesterday....cool old hats
today a giant hog skull....and lots of cheap old school books...

in under 3$ life mags, horseshoes, fruit jars, piles of jewelry and lots in the half price room....spindles and parts...

a fun day

lots of people in today....and lots of fun....

could have sold this wild chair 3 times.....its made out of salvaged curtains....waaaaay under 100$..............it would probably be worth a lot more at a fancy show.....some lady ,probably in the 50s, saved money and upholstrered her chair in her old drapes....or maybe she made drapes and just used the leftovers to do up her chair...you just never know for sure......

.a lady was looking for an island for her kitchen...i told wade , shes looking for an island, and heard him say oh we have lots of island stuff in the key west room!!! meaning flamingoes, paradise signs, mermaids etc etc......a good laugh was had by all.....

several really nice dogs today...we let them in if they are in a purse.....dear dh....i need a dog....

we have baby robins under the awning..

lots of good original old stuff sold this week,,
,,square oak table
cherry hanging cupboard
candy container collection
beautiful rose plates
a civil war book
a ku klux klan newspaper
spooncarved commode
and we should be getting a lot of good stuff in the next couple of weeks...including beautiful old paving bricks.....

manly folkart