I found an old ugly office credenza at Goodwill for $9.99. I brought it home and it was ugly, I mean really ugly and worn out with sun spots and water damage, but still it had good bones. It was sturdy and practical so I used it for several months as a work table in my garage. Pulling out dresser drawers to sand and paint, the ugly office credenza was just what I need to put them on. The height was perfect. You can imagine after several months, it looked even worse, covered in paint, scratches and more.
Until, I had a gentleman come to look at another piece of furniture I had in my garage, but “I really need something for my home office with file drawers. Do you have anything like that?”
“I do have this old thing,” I said, pointing out the ugly office credenza in the back of the corner. I kicked at the base like a used car salesman kicks at the tire of a lemon car. The gentleman pushed on the ugly office credenza and tinkered around for a minute, opening each drawer and I could tell he was wondering how such a junky piece of furniture could ever become what he needed in his home office.
Finally, he said "I think this could work, I like it."
“I could paint it what ever color you prefer,” I suggested, but he cut me off.
“I’m colorblind, so I’m really not into picking out any specific color. Can you stain it back to its natural wood?”
I am a people pleasure through and through. If you asked me to make pecan pie out of egg noodles, I’d try it just to please you. It’s just my nature.
So, I said yes, knowing all to well I’ve never stained a piece of furniture in my life, let alone an old worn-out painted over piece of junk like this credenza.
Still, a promise is a promise and I told him it would be done by the end of the day because I had nothing else to do but take care of my kids, work on about 10 other projects and clean my house.
I started by sanding off the paint from about a dozen different projects. It’s funny how spray paint flies. I was sanding off paint even on the bottom drawers. I cursed the fact that this piece of furniture was so dirty from my own demise. Regardless, I worked away and finally remove the gloss to find the wood (so sorry I don't have a before picture, but I never thought this piece of furniture would be blog worthy).
Bri-wax, elbow grease and self-determination and I had the most beautiful piece of wood furniture I’ve ever seen.
I even spray painted the brassy chipped up sun-faded fixtures black.
I can’t believe this is what was hiding underneath decades of wear.
I really shocked myself.
I called the gentleman back to tell him his credenza was ready and it was gorgeous. I was ready to start bragging, to go on and on about its transformation.
"You can come pick it up anytime," I said with the same enthusiasm my 4 year-old son had demonstrated earlier in the day when he finished building a Lego tower. I was somewhere between disbelief and gloating.
“Sorry, I found another one and already purchased it.”
(Yeah, that whole part was a bummer and a bad ending to this story.)
Still, I thanked him for suggesting it be restored because I am love with staining furniture.
Here it goes on craigslist and let’s hope I get some interest in it, although I'm very fond of it and could look at it and sigh with disbelief for another few days.
