#1 Auction Rule..........

PREVIEW.... PREVIEW..... PREVIEW!!!!!!!!

OK Jan, here's the story:

(at risk of a little personal embarrassment)

I wasn't planning on going to the little auction that I sometimes go to,

and at the last minute thought....housework or auction??

I am so out of here!!!

So against my better judgement, and going against my number one rule...

I didn't preview anything, and yes, still got a bidders card.

A bit into the auction all of the sudden I hear the auctioneer say

"pie safe"!!! What???

Something I have always wanted.

From where I was sitting it looked pretty good,

punched tin sides, screen doors on the front.....yum!!

When he asked for $50 I shot up my card.

$50 for an antique pie safe...are you kidding??

Happy dance!!!

The fact that no one else seemed to be bidding should have been a clue to me.

I only live ten minutes from the auction, so I went and paid for it

and told them I would be back tomorrow with my truck to 

pick it up.  

The next day I go back to help the guy load it up and got my

first good look at my "treasure".

First of all it pretty much had only three legs.

One of the legs was all but gone from rot, and the other three

weren't all that much better.

Trying to act like I knew that all along, no big deal......

I proceeded to help load it into the truck.

When we attempted to lay it on its back, the back

 totally fell apart.

It was one of those pieces of furniture where the back sort of all fits together?

 I am sure there's a name

for that type of construction, but I don't know what it is.

And I am sure it works good, before termites have had their way

with pretty much the whole piece.

I thanked the guy for helping me, couldn't even look at him,

 and got the heck out of there.

CRAP!!!!!

So, I'm driving home, and in my mind i'm  going........

well, I can probably get something for the punched tin,

(this was when I still rented space at antique store) 

I can take the doors off and sell them, the knobs were cute,

get the picture?

But the first order of business was to get it into the garage

and well hidden under a blanket with something piled

on top of it so my husband wouldn't see it.

The first chance I had I gave it a good cleaning.

I decided it was pretty far gone but maybe I could use it for storage?

IF I could get it put back together that is.

So.......first I cut the legs almost totally off.

Not that I had a choice......

Then I got out the nail gun and piece by piece nailed it back together.

But there was a lot of rot and termite damage. A lot!!!

Ok..... I can do this, right?

Off to Lowes for some wood rot filler junk.

I had never worked with this before and I really don't want to again.

I got the areas filled in, let it dry and tried to sand it.

Yeah, right.

Sort of lumpy and bumpy and yuck!! And hard!

Deciding that this was just going into the garage to hold supplies, I decided to throw a coat of

paint on it . I mixed up some mistints I had bought cheap

at Lowes, and started painting it.

Somewhere in the middle of painting it......(fumes??)

I decided that if it was going to hold my supplies

for making memory jugs, maybe it should look like one as well?

So all the places where the lumpy filler was,

I just covered with stuff I had been saving for art projects.

And actually, I don't think it turned out too bad.

It has sort of grown on me.

And by the way.....that pie safe is now rock solid!

I need to repaint it this summer, I never expected it to end up in the house so

it still has the paint I made from mixing several colors together. 

What color would you paint it?

A darker gray? Black?

I tell myself it's a piece of folk art, but then I say that

about my rubber band ball too......lol

So there you go Jan, that's the story .

(I put a link to Jans blog , Gracies' Cottage, up above.

Jan's an antique

dealer that probably always previews........

and has the best "stuff")