Strip club . . .

Alright, alright . . . so I totally deceived y'all with that title. Last time I was in a strip club was prolly back in 2005-ish. With Bob, and a few other friends (though thinking back to that night, maybe friends should be in quotations . . .'nuther story for 'nuther time—when you're old enough to handle the truth. . .) See, that's called "marketing," kids . . .

Anyhoosies, I have a whole house-worth of furniture and stuff sitting just taking up space my garage (where a motorcycle should be), one piece being a beautiful old dresser and mirror that belonged to my paternal grandparents. My dad inherited it when my grandma died, when he died, my brother inherited it. . . fast-forward five years . . .

 . . . when I moved into the rathole historic old house in St. Paul, I was in desperate need for additional storage options. (Back in 1858, when people only owned one of anything—if they owned anything at all—closets the size of saltine boxes totally made sense . . . or not . . .) My brother, Kurt, father of three and co-owner of a houseful of more than enough shit to equip a small third world country with basic needs, had the aforementioned dresser and was all too willing to give it up to me. Being that it was an integral part of our family history, I jumped at the offer.

It served its purpose in the old house in St. Paul, storing tampons, tp, flat irons—y'know, the essentials of life—but back at Wrenwood, I have more than enough closet space to stuff all that and a few dead bodies to boot, so the dresser has sat patiently, in my garage, for several months . . . it's a simple, beautiful piece, in need of a little TLC to breathe some new life into it; I'm still not quite sure what I'm going to do with it—depends on how it turns out. . .  and, just for the recored, I haven't refinished a piece of  furniture in nearly two decades—because of that, this family heirloom could easily end up as kindling . . .

I will exercise extreme restraint and keep this post short, till the end result is in (you have no idea how difficult this is for me—I am sitting on my hands while typing, if that gives you any indication . . .) In the meantime, here are the before pics:

Dresser with mirror (which will be attached, at some point. . .)

Some might call this "shabby chic . . ."

Detail on brass pulls . . .

Detail of wood carvings on mirror . . .