"Frances"

Sometimes the furniture "gods" smile down upon me. This past spring, I stumbled upon a Boy Scout rummage sale and spotted this beat up vanity.

I usually text my mom and sis pictures of my finds, because let's face it, the men in my family could care less. As soon as my niece saw this vanity, she claimed it for herself. The only problem was going to be how to get it half way across the country to her, but we figured we'd worry about that later.

There's a special story to how this vanity got her name Frances. My maternal grandmother's name was Frances, my niece's fraternal great-grandmother's name was Frances, and my niece's middle name is Frances (poor kid). This is a very good marketing tactic if you want to sell your furniture to family members!

This piece was actually in really good condition. There were some minor scratches on the surface, but they sanded out beautifully. My niece asked me to paint it white and put crystal knobs on it. I found a vintage Singer sewing machine stool to use for seating and covered it with pretty fabric that I knew my niece would like.

There were tremendous bleed through issues after two coats of ASCP Pure White. A simple can of Zinsser shellac spray came to the rescue. It was so easy to use, dried in minutes, and then I primed over the piece twice just to make sure I controlled the bleed. Then I sanded between my last two coats of ASCP, slightly distressed and waxed it.

After much back and forth discussions between my sis, niece and myself, I got the go-ahead to sell it. It would have been too expensive to ship it to her/might not fit in her college apartment/no imminent road trips. I have promised my niece that if she finds me a similar vanity, I would be more than happy to paint a similar one on my next visit.

I sold the vanity to a lovely lady who was remodeling her guest room. She recovered the stool using coordinating fabric with her decorating scheme, and was gracious enough to send me the "after" picture to share.

I'm so happy another one of my "rescues" went to a good home. I get such personal fulfillment making new friends and repeat clients and seeing the pics of the pieces once they're in their new home.





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