Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style, dear friends! I’m sorry I didn’t get this up for you yesterday but I’ve been carpet cleaning and washing everything that is fabric based. We had our lovely guest here the weekend before Labor Day, and…
I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
Apparently we have a closet smoker in the family… 🙁 Not happy! Anyway, we are having to steam walls, ceilings, and I just think how I hope I don’t have to repaint over what I have just painted this past year, plus the previous years. I don’t have the strength (or time!).
Anyway, this is why I haven’t been very prompt the past couple of weeks (and when we picked up the new truck). But the house is getting better. 🙂 Might be getting new carpeting sooner rather than later. Will keep you updated!
Now let’s get this party started!
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Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
First up this week we have Shopping an Estate Sale from Lynne at ThriftingWonderland. Great finds! I know you will love checking out what all Lynne found.
Shelbee from Shelbee on the Edge is back and she has The Coolest Outfit to share with us all! You’ll find her blogpost here: Weekend Fun at Stony Fork Music Festival & Spread the Kindness Linkup. Sounds like fun! (pardon the pun) 😉 Perfect for an end-of-summer trip!
Debra from Gma’s Photo shares a love of old barns and abandoned buildings with us this time ~ Old Barn. Love this week’s huge variety of posts!!!
Newcomer Nicolle from Our Tiny Nest shares this delicious recipe for all you coffee drinkers (tea for me, but Mr. E loved coffee!) ~ How to Make Pumpkin Cold Foam Coffee. Looks wonderful! Welcome Nicolle!!! 🙂
Thank You so much to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to everyone for always promoting Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 💜
If you’d like to follow my Share Your Style board on Pinterest I’d appreciate it, thank you! I do post all of the featured posts from each week’s SYS there plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
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. 🙂
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #349! Happy Wednesday to y’all, dear friends!!
This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share any of your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post too and join my small but loyal band of friends. I appreciate you! I appreciate your subscribing, also. As always, I am glad that you are here…💜
I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
Happy Wednesday, dear friends! Hubs and I were out in the heat wave this weekend working on a new shed for the backyard. Yes, you heard correctly, #2, only this one is much smaller. (Post coming soon!) I have been writing posts today but the one I want to share isn’t quite done. But here’s a little tease of the new shed…
It was really windy when I took this. A wild hair got in the lens’ way!
I went with my mother-in-law to Costco last week and picked up this one for the side yard to house our lawn mower and all of the stinky lawn things, like fertilizers, the weed wacker and gas powered things. We didn’t want them adding their odiferous scents to the really nice shed so this should be a good spot for them AND this will free up space in the garage for Mr. Ethereal to create a bigger, better workshop area!
As we head into summer in just a few days, let’s check out some fun summertime ideas! I’ve linked a few of my own into the party at the bottom, too, if you’d like some more inspiration. So let’s get this party started, shall we?
Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge brings on the heat with this gorgeous dress in her post ~ 4 Style Tips for Dressing Up for Special Events in 2022. This is de rigueur for me since I am looking for easy travel clothing to take to France…
Lynne from Thrifting Wonderland shared this pretty floral post ~ Sunday Flowers in an Italian Bag. Love the super bright colors!!!
Jennifer from Curated by Jennifer shared her fun thrifting find in this post from Holland, Michigan ~ Linen Dress in Tulip Fields. Gorgeous tulips and love the dress, too!
Oh my how cute!!! Allyson from Southern Sunflowers is back with a fun and easy 4th of July summer craft in her post ~ Patriotic Star Shaped Wreath. Love it!!!
Thank You so much to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to everyone for always promoting Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 💜
If you’d like to follow my Share Your Style board on Pinterest I’d appreciate it, thank you! I do post all of the featured posts from each week’s SYS there plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
If you’d like to follow my Share Your Style board on Pinterest I’d appreciate it, thank you! I do post all of the featured posts from each week’s SYS there plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
This past Friday I went out for the first time in a month to test the limits of what I can do before wearing out since coming down with the virus. While I was out, I decided to stop by my favorite North Texas thriftshop ~ Twice as Nice! I found two beautiful pieces on this trip so today I thought I’d share this gorgeous French couple sitting down for a little tête-a-tête…
I was soooo excited after walking through all the clothing racks and checking out the craft supply area to turn into the kitchen accessories and housewares area and find this diamond…
As a “senior” I didn’t even pay the $5.00 shown on the tag! Out the door, this gem of a porcelain figurine was $4.11… It is in nearly perfect condition. While waiting in checkout line, I inspected the man and the woman’s fingers and toes and they are all perfect. The noses are perfect and really, if there is anything wrong, it would be where this piece may have been glued down to a shelf or something underneath. You can just see on each leg along the feet some brown stuff.
I haven’t tried to scrub off any of it yet, haven’t even cleaned it!, I just came home giddy to photograph it to share with you…
I am super excited to find out what company made this piece and how old it may be! You can see the firing number here on the bottom but otherwise I didn’t find any other maker’s marks.
Here I’ve grouped this couple with the Taiwanese Federal style man and woman which were my husbands (of course still his, but also mine! 😉 ) before we married. I thought how fun it’d be to bring them all together as a family!
One vignette leads to another…
Here I pulled out the French soup plate found at a thriftshop several years ago now. I thought it gave a nice wallpaper effect. Then I added in a black spaniel I found while thrifting with my sister-in-law in England in 2005. I paid Ł1.00 for him. 🙂
The styles of dress are similar but I have noticed that the new porcelain couple are maybe bone china?? They have a hollow sound that the other couple does not have. I love them all and am completely happy to add them to my small collection of figurines!!!
Time for tea, anyone???
I love how delicate this Parisian couple looks! Their clothing has a lovely late 1700’s look to it. Soft peach and lavender with gold and floral highlights add to the beauty of this little $4.00 find…