Hi all,
Prior to my post yesterday, realised that I haven't posted for ages, so I figured I'd share our 1930's-era cocktail cabinet that we picked up about a year ago.
We got it for a steal on eBay from a family up in Manchester, they no longer had the space so they wanted it gone. It had been in the family since the early 1930's; it belonged to the seller's grandmother. From the pictures on eBay I could see that it had a few signs of use and sun damage, but I figured we could live with that.
Unfortunately the company I hired to bring it down (it was just several cm too wide to fit in the back of my Land Rover) employed Tweedledee and Tweedledum as movers. They failed to strap the cabinet in securely in the back of the van and were also involved in an accident. The end result was that we received it several days later than expected with some damage. The left wing was detached from the main centre cabinet, the woodwork on the left door was smashed, as was the glass, the internal mirror was broken and the veneer was chipped.
On top of that... the sun had faded the cabinet into the most hideous colour imagineable. Bloated corpse beige. My children were afraid to go into the room where it was sitting, it was perhaps the ugliest shade of colour I've ever seen.
In the end the moving company offered me way more money than this was worth to repair it, so I found a local specialist antique restoration service who not only repaired the piece but also sorted out the colour. We're thrilled with the result and finally have the type of vintage cocktail cabinet we've been after for ages!
Prior to my post yesterday, realised that I haven't posted for ages, so I figured I'd share our 1930's-era cocktail cabinet that we picked up about a year ago.
We got it for a steal on eBay from a family up in Manchester, they no longer had the space so they wanted it gone. It had been in the family since the early 1930's; it belonged to the seller's grandmother. From the pictures on eBay I could see that it had a few signs of use and sun damage, but I figured we could live with that.
Unfortunately the company I hired to bring it down (it was just several cm too wide to fit in the back of my Land Rover) employed Tweedledee and Tweedledum as movers. They failed to strap the cabinet in securely in the back of the van and were also involved in an accident. The end result was that we received it several days later than expected with some damage. The left wing was detached from the main centre cabinet, the woodwork on the left door was smashed, as was the glass, the internal mirror was broken and the veneer was chipped.
On top of that... the sun had faded the cabinet into the most hideous colour imagineable. Bloated corpse beige. My children were afraid to go into the room where it was sitting, it was perhaps the ugliest shade of colour I've ever seen.
In the end the moving company offered me way more money than this was worth to repair it, so I found a local specialist antique restoration service who not only repaired the piece but also sorted out the colour. We're thrilled with the result and finally have the type of vintage cocktail cabinet we've been after for ages!
