Antique Buffet!

So I'm sure you all remember this:

Well, sadly it had to go... My husband was convinced that it was too close to the thermostat so it was preventing the thermostat from an accurate reading--- so basically we would wake up in the morning chattering our teeth because it was so cold! I put my Microwave stand/Junk collector on KSL and it sold the very next day. The lady that bought it was SOO excited to get it- she just kept saying "This thing is just SO cute!" I felt good knowing that it was going to a home where it would be appreciated.

That very same day I was browsing through my KSL classifieds and an old beat up antique buffet caught my eye. It was listed for $180--- I thought to myself "It will NEVER sell with a price like that" It had been online for 8 days and it certainly wasn't going anywhere. So I texted the seller and asked them if they were willing to come down to a MUCH more reasonable price. They responded with "Yes... what were you thinking?" to that I replied "The very best I can do is $65" They were probably a little frustrated so they didn't respond for several hours. I sent a follow-up text asking if they had thought about it and their response was "$85 and it's yours" I knew I wasn't going to pay $85 for it but I arranged a time to come look at it/pick it up. We got to the house and it was a lady who had inherited a bunch of old furniture from her Great-Grandma and she was hocking all of it for ridiculous prices on KSL. So I gave the Buffet a thorough looking and I simply said: "I'm going to be honest with you- this thing is extremely beat up. If it was in better condition MAYBE you could get $100 out of it, but I wouldn't feel good about even $85. I have $60 cash out in the truck- that's all I'm willing to do." she thought about it for a minute and hesitantly said "Okay."

I don't feel like I got a fantastic deal at $60 but it had a lot of potential and character and I was willing to put in the work to make it beautiful again. But what I learned is that I'm a dang good haggler!!! :D

Here's my beautiful buffet:

I'm 99% sure it was out in the weather for a good part of it's life- this thing has taken a serious beating.

 I love the curves!

So, lets just get this out here in the open. I'm lazy. I don't like sanding or priming or anything that should probably be done when restoring furniture... with that said, I am actually glad that I didn't get all crazy on this piece- I like that it has character and I wanted to leave some of that intact. I didn't want to paint over ALL of the wood so I left the top alone and went over it with some Minwax polyshades antique walnut- it's stain and polyurathane all in one and I loved how it turned out, the pictures are very difficult to see the wood-  but really, it's beautiful.

Here's the buffet after:

Before:

After: