What I Plan to Do With Two of My Finds

The first item is the little bench thingie that I already showed you a few weeks ago. I scored it for $40 at the Christie Lake Antique Show.

I have some nooks and crannies around the house that are kinda bare so I thought a little bench could fill up one of those spots pretty nicely. The only problem was that once I brought the "bench" into the house it looked more like a little table.

But then the lightbulb went off. I'd been eyeing these little table/bench things from Pottery Barn forever:

Let's compare the two bench/table thingies:

Small Pottery Barn Bench: $169 and fake-old

My Bench: $40 and authentically old

Now, my next purchase was this chippy old piece of architectural salvage:

The minute I saw the chippy white paint and dentil moulding I knew I had to have it. The images that crossed my mind right away were also from Pottery Barn:

The Pottery Barn shelf is large and chunky enough to use as a sort-of headboard. We currently have a double bed in our guest room with no headboard. Cha-ching!!!

Here is the other image from Pottery Barn:

 

Now let's compare my version with the catalog versions:

Chunky Pottery Barn Shelf #1: $525 and fake-old

Chunky Pottery Barn Shelf #2: $591 and fake-old

My Chunky Shelf Thing: $125 and a real piece of architectural salvage

What I love about buying antiques and old things is that with a little bit of creativity and elbow grease you can turn them into your own version of a catalog item. The best part about that is the catalog versions are usually five times the price!!! And we all love a bargain, don't we?   

Now, all I need to do is actually get one of these projects done. Not today though. It's beautiful and I'm off to the cottage with the two pups. And Alex, if he's good. :)