A Thrift Shop Adventure, What I Found + A Little History…

This summer has been glorious for getting out and visiting our local thrift shops! My mother-in-law Gini has been with me a couple of times for an impromptu jaunt, but on this day last week, I was solo. Let’s share a thrift shop adventure…

This is Twice As Nice Resale here in Denton, Texas. It is by far the nicest thrift store around these parts! I have noticed over the last year, it is getting a little more upscale. Like everything else, prices have gone up a bit, especially on furniture. However, overall, prices are good and the value for home decor, small appliances, clothing and more are competitive to other resellers.

I like the way clothing is displayed: buy size and type, and also by color! This makes it so much easier to shop. 🙂 Sorry I didn’t get a photograph for you but I do like to look for gently used jeans there.

50% Off Days

Then there are the monthly 50% off days! Well, when Gini and I had been in here a couple of weeks before, I’d noticed a really pretty piece of furniture.

Something I’d been looking for for quite a while.

It’s BIG.

It has plenty of room for storage and would free up some space in a storage cabinet in the garage for Mr. Ethereal to use for his tools and such.

I also found some really pretty chairs I would have loved to own when I first started buying furniture when we first were married. I imagine this chair is a 1990’s or late 1980’s piece and it would have cost a lot more back then.

I loved these birds! Soooo pretty!!

But this isn’t what I purchased…

I sent a text with a photograph of this coffee table to my mother-in-law last week earlier in the week to see if she was interested. She actually is finally ready to get rid of a bunch of her pieces and free up some space in her new home.

She has Federal style pieces like this, but sadly, many were damaged by careless movers when she left her last house. Fifty-five years in one place and just moving 1800 miles caused a lot more damage than those previous years…

So Gramma needs a new coffee table to replace her old one. I thought this one was perfect as it had a drawer plus lower storage. You could put your feet up on it then wipe it down afterwards and not feel bad about it knowing that it came to you secondhand. 🙂

On the sale day, I showed this one to Gini as she drove over to help me get my purchase back home. I was more than willing to buy this sweet sewing table for her as a thank-you gift for taking time out to help me haul and lift my big item into our house.

So what did I buy?

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Our new flame mahogany buffet

I might be incorrect and it could be walnut. Nevertheless, it has lovely veneers and only needs one area fixed. Years ago, probably the same year I bought the French commode that I use as my bedroom dresser, a friend from the Marine Corps wives, Dawn and her two-year-old daughter and I drove up to Orange, California from where we lived on base at Camp Pendleton (Oceanside). I think on that day I bought silver-plated serving pieces but Dawn found a beautiful buffet similar to this one. I’ve thought of that beautiful buffet ever since! The antique seller was selling many pieces of Biedermeier furniture which were all from the same estate sale.

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We both put items on layaway during that time period. This might have been when I bought the Drexel French style desk!. You know, I think that is right! I did a lot of layaways back then in order to have nice pieces in our home and then paid them off over a few months.

It’s still a great way to get fabulous pieces and stay on a budget. 🙂

In this home, I keep that desk right by the front door. It is perfect for setting my purse on and keeping our household bills in a little tray carrier to keep them accessible. I know I bought my commode-turned-dresser on a different date because my deaf brother was with me then and we were in San Juan Capistrano, California. It was one of the few times he came down for a visit.

It’s also the same day a man ran out in front of my car on Highway 5 heading north, and I was speeding towards him at 70 mph!!!

Dawn and I were practically shouting, “There’s a man in the road! There’s a man in the road!” Her daughter was craning towards the middle of the car so she could try and look over the hood of the car to see what was going on. We assured her that we would not hit the man.

The highway patrol officer who was chasing him stopped at the freeway and let the man take his chances. He did make it to the other side of the southbound lanes successfully.

That’s 10 lanes of freeway traffic…This was 1988 -1989; probably was the spring of 1989.

Those yellow caution signs showing people running and crossing the freeways in California are TRUE! Here’s an article about the last one disappearing with immigration laws changing (linked above).

But I digress… 😉

I have been drooling and waiting ever since… About 36 years!

The back of it is stamped with: Giant Furniture Company, High Point, North Carolina and the number 80. My guess is it is a late 1920’s to 1940’s piece?? I like it’s English look and it kinda goes with the tea cart my brother brought back from England for me in 2005.

Here is a good photograph of my tea trolley loaded with hot chocolate goodies for one of our past Pinterest Challenges.

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Giant Furniture Company ~ A little history

Giant Furniture Co. opened their doors in 1910 and immediately had success. They were pulled into the aircraft industry with the advent of World War I and were doing a booming business even before becoming a government contractor:

By the start of the war, it was considered one of the strongest furniture companies in the city. Giant’s modern equipment and expansive facilities made it an ideal contractor for government work, and so in 1918 it undertook a contract to produce airplane propellers. The resulting propellers were typically made of North Carolina hardwoods like white oak and were installed on Gnome, Curtiss, Penguin, and Liberty aircraft engines. As with other manufacturers in the state, Giant’s government work came to an abrupt end when news of the armistice broke in November 1918.”

Jessica A. Bandel, “Portraits of War: Giant Furniture Company,”
North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources

I haven’t really decorated it yet, but I did give it a really good soap & water cleaning straight away! It had that musty smell, like it had been sitting in a barn for a good long while… Thankfully, no cigar or cigarette smells at all! 🙂

I would have had to turn around and resell it right away if it had been stinky. With my asthma and those smells as my #1 trigger, that could have been bad. But, no problems! I did sniff it over very closely before purchasing it. It’s totally fine now. I put bowls of baking soda in each drawer and the two side doors to pull out any remaining odors.

Oh! And a lady tried to tear of the purchase price ticket off this buffet while I was standing there measuring it! I grabbed it away and told her, “No way!” Maybe it was a family piece and her husband accidentally had the thrift store come and pick it up, I don’t know (my rationale for why I should ~ or could ~ have let her have it instead of me).

But I rather think they are resellers and were looking to resell it at a big profit. I see these buffets being painted (or not) and resold at antique stores for up to $3500.

Not me, if I can help it. It’ll be passed on to my daughter or daughter-in-love, if they want it. And I thought about maybe painting it, but I am rather a purist at heart with furniture. I do love the look of white furniture. 😉

Anyway…

I think I got a good buy at $450.00. 💜  Let me know what you think. 🙂

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Stay cool, dear friends!