How Mabel Got Her Groove Back

Woohoo!

 I won the crown!

Of course, you probably didn't know we were competing. I have kept you completely in the dark. I find it's easier to win that way.

The crown of which I speak is this one:

I am the Queen of  Half Complete. 

It's true. One critical tour of the old homestead, and you will discover tiny little touches left undone all over the place. The Big Kahuna of all such projects... the one for which I won the crown...  is a little drop front desk that has been living in my attic half naked for over a quarter of a century.

 It's true.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I started stripping furniture on my first summer vacation from teaching school, way back in 1985. My first project was this special little pine table.

It's special because my very special grandmother gave it to me to use for my very first desk. You see, at a very tender age, I fancied myself to be the next great American novelist, and a great American novelist needs a great American desk upon which to novel, doesn't she? Yes, she does.

Grandma thought so anyway, and so she gave me this little pine number which had been made by her father as a sewing table for her mother.  That would make it nearly a hundred years old by now.

Back then, it was painted black. If memory serves correctly, Debbie Hemingway requested  pale pink. In the years that followed, it went from pink to white to a trendy 70's antiqued orange. When it traveled to our newlywed nest, I stripped her bare.

I was so pleased with myself that I started looking for other family treasures to strip. I settled on a wonderful old drop front desk. This one was given to the Duchess when she was a teen by a maiden aunt.   A little investigatory stripping revealed a cherry-ish finish. I was thrilled. In  my head, it was going to look very refined.

Believe it or not, I even have an (almost)  before picture.  This was snapped in the back yard of our little newlywed nest way back in 1985.  Apparently, I was predestined to be a blogger.

(That's a before picture of my twenty something legs there. Don't expect an after shot....)

Folks, I stripped that sucker of about six colors of paint, and that was back when stripping solutions were neither as effective nor pleasant as they are today. 

I stripped the sides,

 and the legs,

 and even some little cubby holes on the inside. 

Then, I started on the drop front,

 and just guess what I discovered...

Veneer. 

Not just any old veneer, either, but broken veneer, veneer that had already been repaired at least once. Yes folks, my lovely desk was finished in early American putty.  At least I knew why it had been painted to begin with.

I was so disappointed that I began a pout of epic proportions which traveled from home to home along with my putty covered half naked drop front desk.

It moved from the newlywed nest to the starter home. 

It moved from the starter home to our current home.

And then, it moved to The List

You know... the one that sits mocking me on my sideboard.  

The one with the completion date of December 18, 2011.

Yikes. 

And so, after I finished the daughter's project, I pulled it back down.

I finished the stripping.

 I peeled away the putty and fixed the veneer.

And I did what I should have done to begin with.

I painted it. 

Black. 

That would be the bottom color under those layers of paint.
(She's actually not as shiny as the picture shows. I was trying to get a decent light.)

 I've named her Mabel, after the old maiden aunt.
I think Mabel looks rather nice in basic black, don't you?

I put Mabel in my living room and paired her with a handsome Hitchcock chair. I think Mabel and Alfred make a nice looking couple.  I'm currently working on dressing her jussssst right. If you don't see a follow up post, feel free to assume that it's going as well as my wall decoration.

*****

Sharing this on Met Monday

and with Laura at Decor to Adore