A Piece of History

 So, this week I took on a project that should have been done 40 years or more ago.

This bookshelf has been hanging around our house since the mid-1980's when my dad retired from the Forest Service and moved to Idaho.  My parents brought us a truckload of furniture when we lived in Ft. Hood, Texas which we were grateful for because we were kinda poor back then.

From some letters my dad left behind after his passing I assume he built this bookshelf in the early 1950's when he and my mom were newly married and he was a junior forester who didn't have enough money to buy furniture.  This was several years before I was born so maybe my brothers can correct me if I'm wrong about that.  Anyway, I think this piece of furniture is approximately 70 years old.

It's been an eyesore for many years and every time I walked past it I thought something needed to be done about it.  You may be wondering why I didn't just trash it.  Well let me tell you, I am a sentimentalist at heart.  My dad put some effort into building this and in a way it's his piece of art.  As an artist myself I know how it would feel to trash a piece that I create so that is why it has hung around our house for almost 40 years and why the army has moved it from Texas to Alabama to Kansas to Wisconsin to Colorado and everywhere in-between.

The first step was to get that thick layer of varnish off.  Don't let the picture above fool you, this was the extent of Irv's help with this project.  I bought some good quality varnish remover so this step wasn't too difficult.

After some scrapping and brushing most of the varnish was gone although the redwood stain remained.

It was interesting taking it apart and really noticing how my dad put boards together to make the wide door.

Next step was to paint it white.  I decided to leave the parts unpainted that my dad had left natural all those years ago.

After the white paint was dry it was time to distress the look since my goal was the farmhouse look.

Yes, I'm taking an old piece of furniture and making it look even older.

I wanted to jazz it up a little and give it some character so I added some tile looking press ons to the back of the shelves.  Almost done.

Whoops...I forgot to do the legs.

Added a really cute new door handle.

And there you have it!  A newly refinished old piece of furniture.  I know this piece of history won't survive after I'm gone, but it's nice having a piece of my dad close every day.  I wonder what he's thinking up there in heaven--hopefully he's smiling.