Talk about quality furniture!  East Lake furniture from the late 1800′s was made of walnut or oak and so sturdy.  The pin and tail dovetails & spoon carved design are a sign of skilled craftsmanship and this dresser is in great condition for it’s age.  The swivel mirror is so old but you can still see yourself in it.  It’s got a neat shelf to hold your comb and brush too.  This antique oak dresser cleaned up nicely and will be out on the floor in the next week or two. It really has a nice “On Golden Pond” look and  I’m really not sure I want to sell it now! LOL!  I’m thinking it would also look nice in my cabin in NC, that I don’t have yet!

This full-size 53 galllon whiskey barrel would look good in any man cave or wine cellar. The barrel doesn’t appear to ever been used to age any whiskey, so it has no odor, rust or seepage. Using it as-is or with a glass top it would make a cool pub table.

Knob Creek Whiskey Barrel

Not being a whiskey connoiseur, had to do some reaserch and found that Knob Creek is a specialty small-batch Kentucky Bourbon whiskey made by Jim Beam distillery.

The Rays, originally were named the Devil Rays and the stadium was called the Thuunder Dome when the team was awarded to St Petersburg in 1996. Part of the award process included improvements to the Thunder Dome. We’ve come across a cool collectible… an 80 plus page packet of blueprints for bidding on the improvements. Go Rays!

Rays Thunderdome Blueprints

Duck Decoy

He liked collecting decoys, and he would have liked this one. So here’s to you Dad for fathers day 2011.

Weiman Serving Tea Table

This Heirloom Weiman Quality Table from the 1940′s has me perplexed.  We discovered it over the weekend and have been trying to find out about it’s purpose.  It must be a serving table of some sort because of the round brass carrying handle on the top.  Perhaps it was carried from the butlers pantry to the guest’s chair.  Possibly for serving tea or fancy desserts in a hotel lobby or grand estate.

I love the brass “fence” surrounding the bottom shelf. Why is that fence there and what did that shelf hold?  Something that they didn’t want to fall off the table I guess. Or was the brass fence just for decoration?  Plus the top is inlaid in leather.  Very stylish and ornate.

I’m intrigued by this small Weiman Table and would love to find out more about  it.  If you have any ideas just send me a message.

At a recent garage sale my husband bought two retro looking nightstands and sat them on the front porch for me to see when I arrived to open up in the morning.

They were a little rough. My first impression was UGLY!

Tom thought that he could refinish them, maybe in black or a 50′s aqua. Well, I guess they’d look better.

I just wasn’t that exited about them, so I put off researching them. Big mistake!

A customer came in the next day we were open and spotted them still on the porch. I quoted her a price, gave a little discount. As we were sealing the deal, I pulled out one of the drawers and there in all it’s glory, was the BIG Heywood Wakefield stamp!

I didn’t even get a chance to take a picture of the nightstands to share.

Here’s what one would look like restored to like-new.

So my customer got a super deal and I got another learning moment.

Sometimes we have to “pay” for our “education”.

Pinky playing Robin Hood

Isn’t is funny how something in present day can trigger a flash back to something from your childhood?  That just happened to me this week.

I was out in the garage doing the laundry.  Yep, wish my washer and dryer was inside, but alas, it’s in the garage.  Here comes my kitty, Pinky, cautiously tip-toeing through the door to join me.  He’s slung low, slinking towards me looking up and down, left and right checking out the unknown.  He’s never been to this part of the hosue before.  Now mind you, I can get to the washer and dryer.  But the rest of the garage hasn’t had a car parked in it for over 5 years.  Yes, we used to park our car in there, but over the years, I don’t know, something happened.  It’s full.  I can at least see over the piles of who-knows-what to look out into the street but here’s poor Pinky wondering if he should or shouldn’t navigate his way through the meriad of winding “paths”.

And so it reminded of when I was a kid growing up in the country in rural PA that there was this little spit of woods between the lane going up to our neighbor’s house and the path to the dog kennels.  This enchanted woods was a treasure trove filled with bunny & groundhog paths, overhanging maple tree  branches and wild berry brambles, cozy sunlit honeysuckle forts lined with fallen leaves, and ewwwwwww, Boogie Lice!  Yes, I’ve said it!  Boogie Lice!  LOL.  Today we’d call those nasty weeds Spanish Needles but back then, who cared.  It was Boogie Lice.  Those jabby black daggers just embedded themselves into your clothes and stabbed the heck out of you. (Which now reminds me that my sister said I used to say “Queen Anne’s lace with a Boogie in the middle.” LOL  But that’s a story for another day.)  But hey, we were kids and kids just play and play and play.  That area became our Robin Hood play area.  I guess because it reminded us of Sherwood Forest and Robin Hood was such a hero back then?!?  And it was close to home so we didn’t have to go up into the meadow to play in the woods.  It was right there in the back yard! 

So shen Pinky took his walk throught the boxes, buckets, chairs, cabinets, tool chests and what-have-you, it reminded me of my sisters and I kids playing Robin Hood, outside in our little neck of the woods.