I often marvel about how lucky I am. Not in the sense of having creature comforts but how things come to me when there’s a need. There are limitations of course; I’m not so hot at playing the lottery. I’ve never won anything more than ten dollars and a couple of free tickets. But over my lifetime, if there was a need or a serious want, it seemed to avail itself to me. It’s like calling parking spaces. If I think of where I wish to park, there is always a free space when I get there.
Ninety-nine percent of the time when I go into the post office to mail a parcel, there is no one ahead of me but after I arrive, people seem to pile in behind me. At times when I was a young mother, and in need of cash to purchase a necessity, the money would miraculously find its way to me in different ways. And rain, it can be pouring down, cats, dogs and horses, but when I need to go outside it stops, enough to get to the car without getting wet. It happens far too often to be a coincidence and hubby jokes about my being a princess. What other explanation could there be?
One day last year while my mother-in-law was visiting we decided to give her a tour of the surrounding countryside. I announced before we left the house that I wouldn’t mind checking out a few buy & sell places for a cabinet for our downstairs powder room. This tiny room barely affords enough space to turn around or change your mind in, but I felt I could squeeze in a surface to put our reading material on and store some extra toilet paper. We hopped in the car and headed Lunenburg way and ended up taking a leisurely drive to Blue Rocks.
As we motored by the small picturesque houses built on a landscape of rock, it was apparent a big dump day was coming as there were piles of garbage all along the roadside. People had thrown out old mattresses, small appliances and broken bric a brac. I’m not a dumpster diver or one of those pickers who comb the countryside looking for stuff to haul home and sell in a yard sale, but my eyes were captured by the piles of broken housewares and children’s toys that had seen better days.
The view in Blue Rocks is breath taking. It was as sunny day so the sea was especially blue with white caps breaking on rock shoals, but my eyes were glued to the refuse, the antiquer in me looking for a diamond in the rough. There were a lot of broken pressed back chairs, a sad sight; a Duncan Phyfe coffee table with one leg missing and a top so warped the veneer was flaking off....even sadder. As we drove along the narrow road, a quaint detour along the shore, one mound of debris was crowned by a small smoker stand with the most delicate turned legs. The top was missing and rusted hinges longed for its absent door, but the legs looked intact and sturdy. I knew someone who would be able to turn this trash into a treasure, so I screamed stop, jumped out of the car, chucked my find into the trunk and we sped off like a couple of kids ringing doorbells and dashing away.
I could see the beauty in this derelict. Not only was this little cabinet perfect for the space, it deserved another chance. I have this thing for inanimate objects, I get all emotional over them and I don’t like to see things abused or broken. I get this trait from my mother who polished and shined her stove and fridge until you could see your unborn children in them. She kept all her furniture waxed and buffed and cried when a scratch or a ding stole their perfection.
So I gave it to my guy Steve, the chap who makes most of my frames and hooks, and told him to give it a door and a top deserving of the style. I planned on handing it off to Sue Cunningham for a decorative paint finish as she is a dynamo with a brush. The dark wood would have dominated the bathroom, so a painted finish would blend better with the white sink and john. I handed it over and said, slap something embossed on the door and work your magic. Sue has a business called Perfectly Imperfect where she re-purposes sad and neglected pieces into functional and beautiful.
You would not believe this beautiful cabinet was ever doomed to be crushed in the jaws of the garbage truck and tossed in a landfill. It sits in my little bathroom as if it was created for the space. Sue embossed a decorative motif on the front of the door and distressed it perfectly, showing rubbed areas that would have naturally occurred from years of use. Now I have an heirloom to enjoy for many years. I couldn’t have designed a more perfect little cabinet.
I still find it strange how I called it. Wanting to find the perfect piece of furniture and doing just that. Is there a horseshoe in my nether regions? The chances of ending up in that little seaside village on that very day, at that very time, a place I visit less than once every couple of years, I really wonder about life’s strange little coincidences.
Ninety-nine percent of the time when I go into the post office to mail a parcel, there is no one ahead of me but after I arrive, people seem to pile in behind me. At times when I was a young mother, and in need of cash to purchase a necessity, the money would miraculously find its way to me in different ways. And rain, it can be pouring down, cats, dogs and horses, but when I need to go outside it stops, enough to get to the car without getting wet. It happens far too often to be a coincidence and hubby jokes about my being a princess. What other explanation could there be?
One day last year while my mother-in-law was visiting we decided to give her a tour of the surrounding countryside. I announced before we left the house that I wouldn’t mind checking out a few buy & sell places for a cabinet for our downstairs powder room. This tiny room barely affords enough space to turn around or change your mind in, but I felt I could squeeze in a surface to put our reading material on and store some extra toilet paper. We hopped in the car and headed Lunenburg way and ended up taking a leisurely drive to Blue Rocks.
As we motored by the small picturesque houses built on a landscape of rock, it was apparent a big dump day was coming as there were piles of garbage all along the roadside. People had thrown out old mattresses, small appliances and broken bric a brac. I’m not a dumpster diver or one of those pickers who comb the countryside looking for stuff to haul home and sell in a yard sale, but my eyes were captured by the piles of broken housewares and children’s toys that had seen better days.
The view in Blue Rocks is breath taking. It was as sunny day so the sea was especially blue with white caps breaking on rock shoals, but my eyes were glued to the refuse, the antiquer in me looking for a diamond in the rough. There were a lot of broken pressed back chairs, a sad sight; a Duncan Phyfe coffee table with one leg missing and a top so warped the veneer was flaking off....even sadder. As we drove along the narrow road, a quaint detour along the shore, one mound of debris was crowned by a small smoker stand with the most delicate turned legs. The top was missing and rusted hinges longed for its absent door, but the legs looked intact and sturdy. I knew someone who would be able to turn this trash into a treasure, so I screamed stop, jumped out of the car, chucked my find into the trunk and we sped off like a couple of kids ringing doorbells and dashing away.
I could see the beauty in this derelict. Not only was this little cabinet perfect for the space, it deserved another chance. I have this thing for inanimate objects, I get all emotional over them and I don’t like to see things abused or broken. I get this trait from my mother who polished and shined her stove and fridge until you could see your unborn children in them. She kept all her furniture waxed and buffed and cried when a scratch or a ding stole their perfection.
So I gave it to my guy Steve, the chap who makes most of my frames and hooks, and told him to give it a door and a top deserving of the style. I planned on handing it off to Sue Cunningham for a decorative paint finish as she is a dynamo with a brush. The dark wood would have dominated the bathroom, so a painted finish would blend better with the white sink and john. I handed it over and said, slap something embossed on the door and work your magic. Sue has a business called Perfectly Imperfect where she re-purposes sad and neglected pieces into functional and beautiful.
You would not believe this beautiful cabinet was ever doomed to be crushed in the jaws of the garbage truck and tossed in a landfill. It sits in my little bathroom as if it was created for the space. Sue embossed a decorative motif on the front of the door and distressed it perfectly, showing rubbed areas that would have naturally occurred from years of use. Now I have an heirloom to enjoy for many years. I couldn’t have designed a more perfect little cabinet.
I still find it strange how I called it. Wanting to find the perfect piece of furniture and doing just that. Is there a horseshoe in my nether regions? The chances of ending up in that little seaside village on that very day, at that very time, a place I visit less than once every couple of years, I really wonder about life’s strange little coincidences.
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