My Antique Booth Update

I have been really busy with the antique booths at Antiques et Cetera in Benton, Kentucky the past few months.  Yes, I said booths!  What started out as one booth a little over a year ago has blossomed into three separate booths.  Want to take a look?

This is the original booth.  2 weeks after we took this booth the small booth next to it opened up, so we combined them into one larger booth.  We built 4 sets of shelves backed with burlap, hung a banner and made money every month after the first month...

The second booth we opened was our "Mantiques" booth.  This one is more geared towards guy stuff and it's been doing really well.

Albums are a big hit as is bar ware...

Books, magazines and camping equipment...

Tools...

And lots of fishing equipment...

And then we got a third booth.  This one has more furniture in it, kitchen ware, beachy stuff, kids items and a Christmas section...

We have a lot of inventory across the 3 booths.  Furniture has been a slow mover in this area, which disappoints me to no end.  We really like finding and redoing furniture and I was hoping it would sell better.  So far we've sold more furniture out of our garage, so I may be rethinking the marketing of the furniture.  Any suggestions?

In the meantime, if you're in the western Kentucky area, visit us at Antiques et Cetera on Main street in Benton.

White Trunk Re-do

I can't help myself - I love re-doing antique trunks!  This is the latest one that I just refinished.  I bought it at an estate sale a couple of weeks ago and this is what it looked like when we brought it home...

This trunk was by far in the worst condition of any truck I've done yet.  I have no idea what that white crap was inside.  I vacuumed it out and then washed down the entire trunk with bleach water and let it sit out outside for a few days in the sun.  Then I ripped out most of the paper because it was in really bad shape.

The side handles disintegrated so Louie removed them and then cut new handles from an old black belt.  Once he finished that he turned his attention to the lock.  Originally we thought it was broken but it just needed to be oiled.  The trunk was missing its key but I happened to have a spare one that worked so we really lucked out!

The fabric covering on the outside bottom of the trunk was badly shredded and falling off so I took a couple sheets of paper and mod podged them over the bad areas.  Once they dried I painted the entire trunk with 2 coats of white paint, including the patched areas on the bottom.  It worked like a dream and you can barely even tell the bottom was patched.

Then I lightly distressed the entire trunk, paying extra attention to the brass rivets, and finished up with a good coat of wax.

The final thing I did was grab my favorite go-to for papering trunk interiors - vintage sheet music!  It took 2 nights to do while watching TV, but it turned out great!

Every trunk I do is my new favorite.

 Available at Antiques Et Cetera in Benton, Ky.

Linking up with...

Vintage Charm #81

Furniture Transformations - Small Drop Leaf Table and Chair

I know I keep going back to the amazing furniture we picked up for free a couple weeks ago, but honestly, we got so much great stuff.  One of the pieces was a small drop leaf table...

Once we really looked at it we realized that one of the drop leaf supports was broken off and missing.  Sometimes my husband amazes me - he removed the other support, traced it onto a piece of wood, and cut out an identical leg.  I think he did a great job on it and I never would have thought to do that!

Then he reassembled everything...

Around the same time we picked up a cute little wire chair at an estate sale.  I spray painted it with some black paint.  The seat was shot so I removed it and re-covered it with some red and white checkered fabric.

Louie painted the table black and red so we paired them.  The chair is the perfect size for the small table!

 Available at Antiques Et Cetera in Benton, Ky.