Treasure for the Loo

Last week was not the best week. In the famous words of Roseanne Roseannadanna:

"Well it just goes to show you, it's always something, you either got a toenail in your hamburger or toilet paper clinging to your shoe."

Basically, that's how my week went. First the septic system, then the Dandelion and on top of all of this - I got sick. I finally caught the creeping-crud that everyone else has had. So, nothing really got done this past week.

On Sunday I was feeling a little better so SWMBO and I hopped in the car and went to an auction in a small town next to us.

Among the many treasures we got, two were for the house specifically. One was a big ole' box of ceder shingles we can use to replace the missing/broken pieces of fish scale on the house.

The main treasure was for the upstairs loo. We are planning on replacing the el'cheapo 70s style lavatory vanity with a more vintage type.

What we have wanted to replace it with is an old lowboy dresser, or buffet, with a lavatory placed on top. SWMBO got the idea for this from the B&B we stayed in on our wedding night.



Here it is in all it's glory!!









Ain't it grand! (Hmmm...I know what you’re thinking and THAT'S what Annette thought when she first saw it too!)

We were suppose to pic it up on Monday, but the weather was bad and we had to wait till today to get it. Don't feel too bad about your first reaction, my dad had the same one!

Oh, before I forget - there were treasures inside the treasure! I found an old hand saw, buttons, and mice nests inside.



As SWMBO has recently discovered, she's the geeky nerd and I'm the free spirit.




Perhaps that's why I could see the 'diamond in the rough' and she couldn't.

In all honesty, the more she looked at it the more she liked it.

It does need a LOT of TLC - but hey, it'll be worth it.

During one of my working lulls today my curiosity got the best of my - I just HAD to see what the wood looked like under all that cruddy paint.

With masking tape in hand I decided to do a 'before & after' type thing with it. I placed tape down the center and applied some new stripper we got.

Let's just say we are not happy with this company or it's product. The customer service sucks, they charge an outrageous shipping cost, and it didn't work as well as it was suppose to. Anyway, you can see in to the left of the blue tape in the photo. Granted, the instructions say it can take from two hours to 24 hours to work, but the ads claim it's ready when the color changes (and the average is 3 hours). Well, I let it set for almost five hours and it looked like it dried out! The color did change, but not much.



This is what it looked like after scraping off the stuff.





BTW - It didn't come off as easily as it claims to and was messy than advertised also.

However, I will give it a second chance at a later date and will give an up-date when I do.

This is what it looked like after using the tried-n-true 'Stripease'.

Can you believe how rich this wood looks?!

After using the after-wash, and letting it dry, I used a 300 grit sanding pad to clean it up a bit.




Looks like all we'll have to do is add a sealer and clear coat. Let's hope the rest of the wood is just like top!

I'll keep you posted on this project as well.

Cheers!
Larry ~