Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Campaign That Got Away

Last Saturday, I begged Matt to drive me and the boys to ReHabitat, a place where people dump their unwanted furniture and cabinetry from their kitchens. You name it, they have it. Lighting, sinks, bathtubs, tiles, old tools. The money goes back the charity build homes for the poor all over the USA.

When we were there, I spotted an antique desk which took me all of 10 minutes to snap up and buy it straight away. I knew it was going into the boys' room. I will take a picture of it in the morning.

Anyway, I digress. I had a quick walk through the whole store and saw this beauty.

Yes, it was a knockoff Campaign dresser! It came with a hutch, all for $50! What a rare find! It was a laminate but with some primer and paint, I could transform it and sell it. They are very popular as Campaign furniture was used by the British military in the World War. If you do an Ebay search for Campaign furniture, you see that some of them run in the thousands of dollars.



One of my favourite designers from LA, Vanessa De Vargas of Turquoise repainted her dresser in this eye catching green. Her dresser is so famous that it has made the rounds into so many international decor magazines, all the way to Australia.


Other bloggers have also transformed their campaign furniture. I saw this on another blog and save the picture but I cannot remember where I saw it to give the blogger credit.



So on Tuesday, I went back to the store to see if I could pick it up. I opened all the drawers and one of them was stuck. The bottom part of the drawer that formed the slider was damaged. Could I fix it? It was beyond my current capabilities. Not only that, I have a million other projects to do right now and although painting furniture is quick, fixing a slider requires a contractor to do it and that would raise my costs if I thought of selling it. In the end, I had to let my head rule and walked away from buying it.


2 comments:

  1. How I would love to go a-thrifting with you. First there's always the thrill of buying something for a steal! Then, I love the idea of giving old & unwanted things a makeover. Of course if it can fetch a good price after that, that would be a bonus :-) Hmmmm..... then again I have a feeling I won't be able to let them go easily ... after all the TLC put in.

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  2. Oh you let it get away. As you can tell from blog land these can either be hard or easy to come by. Hopefully you will find one soon.

    Mr. Goodwill Hunting

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