My Upcycling Project: Refinishing Vintage Glassware

This project was a hard project to complete.  I had to obliterate the beautiful red tint that existed on the 1950's Ruby Red  Teardrop Compote in order to upcycle the glass and fix it's unfortunate flaws created by time's passage.  I'm all for keeping vintage and antiques as is flaws and all, but not when I'm attempting to sell them.  Let's face it, the scratches and blemishes that give a piece character also make them unsellable and less valuable to the consumer.  So though I loved this Ruby Red Teardrop Compote, I began a project to make it a perfect upcycled piece sellable and desirable by all.

I began my project by removing the red tint that had become scratched over the years. My first attempt utilized finger nail polish remover and a cotton ball.   That would have taken a while . . .






















I then decided to try out the copper scrubber that my husband told me is great for scrubbing glass without scratching the glass itself.  Here's the product in case you were interested:  Chore Boy Copper Scrubber.  This really took me a lot of time and muscle power to scrub each teardrop on the compote and remove every single grain of red paint.  However, it was thankfully quicker than the nail polish remover.

Finally after much scrubbing, scraping, and rubbing, I had a clear surface.  A starting place for a new compote . . . a brightly colored refinished compote.

Now I needed my color to make this piece pop.  I searched all over the craft store for the right product.  I checked the paint section, the glass painting section, the beading section, the glassware section, then finally I found my product of choice in the spray paint section.  Basically, it is a translucent paint for glassware, metal, tile, and other like surfaces.  And it was the PERFECT color.

So I set up a plastic sheet on my sidewalk outside my house, shook the can for two minutes, popped off the top, and slowly began working over the surface with the paint.  I didn't want the color too deep, so I really took my time.  It looked stunning!  I even was able to lightly coat the stem just like the Ruby Red color had been previously on the stem.  I'm in love.

Here is a close up on the teardrop sides:

I am so pleased with the color and the look of this piece.  Unfortunately, today's forecast is rain, rain, rain, so I really couldn't get enough light to make these pictures perfect.  I'll take what I can get!

Here is my Before and After shot!

 I'll be sure to post when I put this up on Etsy!  Right now I'm still trying to figure out how much to charge with all the time I spent on the project and the price of the paint.  Now I know how to upcycle and refinish glass items, so fun!

Comment suggestion:

Let me know if you've ever refinished glassware.  What's your favorite paint?  Do you use stencils?  Maybe the etching product?

Unique Find: Empire Chest of Drawers



Unique Chest of Drawers at Antique Store



A little over a week ago, my husband and I were in Buena Vista, Virginia.  We love visiting the area because of the beautiful mountains, unique sites, and for all the wonderful antique stores in nearby Lexington.  During this past trip, we found a new antique store in downtown Buena Vista.

The store front used to be a local hardware store, but it had closed within the past few years.  The owner pulled up the linoleum in the store and discovered a beautiful hard wood floor underneath.  As we talked with him about his new venture, an antique store, he explained that a friend suggested that he put some furniture and glassware in the store and see if it sells.  What is the point of leaving an empty store front empty when waiting for it to sell?  My husband and I are more than thankful for his venture, because we were able to find the perfect chest of drawers to replace the small children's dresser that we were still using in our bedroom.

I saw it first.  I walked over to this substantial solid wood chest of drawers and could tell that it was an older piece.  I was the one who was supposed to find a dresser for myself, but this chest of drawers was a little to big and manly for my taste.  So I pointed the piece out to my husband and kept walking.

My husband walked over to the piece and fell in love.  He loved the hand cut dove tailed drawers, he loved the thick pieces of wood used for its construction, and he loved the spacious drawers.  When we looked at it together, we realized that the piece was constructed with cut nails and was definitely earlier than the 1900's.  One look at the price tag and we were hooked, this chest of drawers was coming home to Mississippi.

Let me tell you right now, when a piece of furniture is made right it is extremely heavy!  The interior of the drawers were made of pine, but the exterior was some other wood that definitely added to the weight.  With some difficulty, we loaded the chest of drawers into our truck and brought it inside for the night until the next day when we rented a U-haul trailer to tow behind the truck.

That night we did a little research.  The tag in the antique store had suggested that the chest of drawers was Empire style, so we had a good starting point.  When we began to research Empire style, we found that the style originated over in Europe.  However, this piece had nothing to do with the European Empire style.  This was actually an American Empire Style piece dating from around 1850 to 1860.  Typically, most American Empire furniture pieces were made with mahogany; therefore, we are pretty sure that we have identified the exterior wood on the piece.  The biggest difficulty in determining the type of wood used in the chest of drawers was in the fact that over the years the finish had formed a beautiful cracked texture over the entire piece.  Our new chest of drawers was an American Empire Chest of Drawers from the 1850's constructed with beautiful mahogany.

Comparison Shot:  Old versus New

The chest of drawers made the trip home with no trouble.  My husband was more than happy to replace the small children's dresser, which he had been using out of necessity, with an outstanding antique chest of drawers that more than doubled his storage space.  Though the piece is large, we were able to integrate it into our room across from our bed.  What a wonderful piece of furniture to wake up to every day!  I am truly in love with furniture and enjoy every day that brings me closer to filling my home with unique furniture finds!