175 Years of Sophistication and Beauty

This beauty came into the Wood Talkin shop last week. Our customer's goal is to enhance her finish, so we engaged some careful discussion around what that meant to her, the impact of any effort on the value of this fine piece of art, and our customer's long-term plans for this piece.

Everything about this old beauty says "art." From her drawers' hand-scribed dovetail joints, autographed frame, deeply worn drawer slides, square hand-forged nails, cast iron and porcelain castors, rough sawn internal and back-closure pieces...we conclude that she is pre-1840, and probably 1820-1830.

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This was a square weight bearing side of the drawer slide worn convex through 175 years!

Four (count them!) hand scribed and then cut dovetail joints on each drawer. Can you see the scribe marks?

Art Deco

This pretty little Art Deco vanity came to us with a matching vanity chair, bed headboard and footboard and a five drawer dresser. It's a really fun set. Our customer acquired these to offer her friends a guest room adventure when they come to her home for an overnight stay.

The set turned out really well. Among some other things it was "heard" to say, "It's so wonderful to look young again." Yes, they are so impressive when one enters that room for the very first time. I'll offer a picture of the entire set in a upcoming post.
That's Wood Talkin for tonight.

Where are the handles? I apologize that we did not get them into this picture. They were later cleaned and re-secured onto the drawer fronts. Manufactured in the 1930-40's, they were thin brass and plastic. Yes, plastic! At that time plastics were relatively fresh on the manufacturing scene; the latest thing. These were a streaming purple-ish color framed in yellow brass frames on each drawer. They really accented this little vanity---they made it POP!

Check out that wonderful, original, decorative tape. It's thematic throughout the set...on each piece!