A Vintage Tall Chest in Dove Gray

I'm frequently asked how I sell my furniture. I don't have a brick and mortar shop (though ye gods it is my single greatest dream), and I don't travel to flea markets or art shows and set up a booth (because trundling a booth's worth of furniture to and from a show is a pain in my ass I genuinely don't need). I don't need that particular pain because I don't have much trouble moving the furniture along through my various online pages- facebook, instagram, my ever salty and wholly inappropriate twitter account, of course this blog, and then last but not least, there's my tagsales, which are a beast all their own.
         I can't remember why exactly I decided last year, in early summer, that I should have an Heir and Space tagsale, but it might have been because I'd knocked some precariously stacked staging glassware over while trying to paint the underside of the bottom shelf on a hutch, done a piss poor sweeping job, and knelt on a missed shard of the broken glass. Excellent motivator! And I'm glad for it. The tagsales, we've done four thus far, are SO much fun, a great way to move along furniture, sell some of my watercolors, make space to buy more smalls for staging, and most importantly, to meet all of you out there. I mean, the week before the tagsale is always an absolute nightmare, with loads of fifteen hour days and ugly-sobbing, but the day of, and the brief euphoria that follows? Top shelf.
       While prepping various pieces for the tagsale we had this Saturday, I also squeezed in this sweet c.1930 mahogany tall chest, which had been brought to me by two of my favorite clients. I say 'squeezed in', but really I just dropped kicked various more overdue projects aside to attack this beauty. I have no self control and I was chomping at the bit with this one, soooooo pretty! I failed to take a 'before' photo which is hilarious because I must have reminded myself at least twelve times while working on it to take a 'before' because it was bad. Some knucklehead had sanded it right down to the bare wood, and then maliciously glooped oil based black paint on it, AND THEN put the most hilariously horrendous knobs on it. "Hot Mess' isn't hot enough to describe what this ole' gal was when she rolled up to my workshop, it was a Volcanic Mess.
        The clients asked for a quiet dove gray, with a bit of distressing to bring out the wonderful carving that had been lost under the drippy torrent of ill-advised black paint. We also decided to go with Federal style stamped brass drawer pulls, to honor what was likely on the piece originally. I sanded the black oil off almost entirely so I'd have a smooth surface with which to work, and mixed up a batch of custom pale gray. The pulls are two separate sets, but both ordered from ebay (my favorite source for vintage hardware).
        I know the staging on this one is pretty simple, but at the time I photographed it I'd already priced all my staging stuff for the tagsale and was too beat to hunt through my house for something to use. That's ok though, I think this beauty speaks for itself, no need to gild the lily.