You Never Know What You'll Find

I have always always always wanted to refinish a kidney desk. I think they're rather ugly to be frank. A bit too curvy for my own taste, which leans heavily towards simple boxy silhouettes. But I know a damn good piece of furniture when I see one, and when I spotted this vintage solid mahogany kidney desk on craigslist last week, DAMN GOOD was what I immediately thought. I reached out to the seller immediately even though I think it was something like 6:50am. I knew there'd be a cartload of inquiries on this beauty and I wanted to throw my hat in the ring as quickly as possible. Luckily my hat landed first and I was able to swing up that very day to snag not only this great desk, but a wonderful antique dresser as well. The seller mentioned how he'd had more than 20 other people contact him about the desk after I'd emailed. Tough luck for them, I'm the Annie Oakley of craiglist, a quick drawer and a straight shooter.

        Well ok, I'm stretching the metaphor a bit thin. Let's just look at the pretty desk now. I'm a painter not a comedienne.

        Actually one final funny aside about this desk. I've found many many odd things in the drawers of furniture over the years; Sterling silver pocket knives, a will and entire financial documents including investments and bank statements (I burned them), antique silk scarves, large caches of vintage family photographs, child support documents, suicide notes, condoms, hand drawn father's day cards, bullet casings, $120 in cash, a gold necklace, a living toad, innumerable spiders, a mummified mouse, a pocket watch, and envelope of receipts from a ten year span in which the person only bought canned soup, and only from one grocery store, and finally, in this desk I found weed.

        I was hauling it out of my truck and into my workshop and the skies had taken this most inopportune moment to open up and pour. Since I can only lift this beast by myself with the drawers out, I was hurriedly taking removing them and rushing to my workshop, schlepping three at a time, when a strong and unmistakable odor wafted up from one of the drawers I was holding. I'm so numb to the normal disregarded detritus accumulated in unsorted drawers that it took me a long moment to register what I was looking at. Yup, old dried out weed. Which I tossed in the fire pit. I scrubbed the drawer interiors the next day. It's an odd business, this refinishing furniture stuff.