WE GOT A SITUATION
These beautiful lampshades are from Not Too Shabby New Jersey on Etsy.
If you’re anything like me, you can’t get enough knee-high nylons hot glued on vintage lampshades. So you can imagine my excitement when I noticed that they actually have a store in New Jersey, where one can ostensibly bring their own socks to be glued on the priceless object of their choosing.
At this point you may be asking yourself, “If these people can completely destroy a pair of vintage lampshades, what they can do with antique furniture?”
Well, lucky for masochists like us, Not Too Shabby has a TRANSFORMATIONS section on their web site, so you can revel in what passes for restoration in New Jersey.
A small antique sideboard with inlaid wood accents magically becomes…
A sink covered with housepaint and a Corian countertop for the downstairs crapper. Note the bottles of nail polish used as decorative accents.
That’s what I call “piss elegant.”
Next, a beautiful wooden flat top vanity with turned legs need a little TLC to be restored to its former glory.
On the other hand, you could just spray paint it hot pink and hope that Snooki is looking for something to put her pickles on.
Next we have “Grandpa’s dresser.” Hard to see what kind of wood we’re looking at, but the Cabriole leg suggests that this is a solid, heavy piece, probably made of fruitwood. You certainly don’t want to paint over those drawers!
Save the paint for everything else! And make sure you slap a mosaic on top so no one can ever restore it. Remember, It’s not a transformation if it isn’t totally ruined!™
Finally, this small ornate server boasts hand carved design elements, hinting at the beauty under the white paint.
Then again… STRIPES
- See more TRANSFORMATIONS here
January 6, 2012 at 12:18 pm
That hot pink dresser would go perfectly with a light splatter of tequila induced vomit after a long night out dancing and showing off my hoohah.
January 6, 2012 at 1:02 pm
you and Snooki!
January 6, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Yes, the mirror would really help a girl share her lady parts with everyone there. And don’t you LUV how it coordinates with the pea-green bedspread?
This furniture molester really knows her market though; I thought “Snooki” as soon as I saw it, didn’t even need to read the comment. Sigggghhh.
January 6, 2012 at 6:51 pm
I have to disagree with you on one thing: We aren’t dealing with a mere furniture molester here, this is all out antiques rape! And I don’t use that word lightly.
January 6, 2012 at 8:00 pm
love your name! (I’ve been married to a microbiologist for 35 years, so I’m warped that way.)
January 6, 2012 at 8:22 pm
*GRINS*
Thanks! I just always found that name to be way too pretty for a nasty critter.
I’m talking about the bug here…
January 6, 2012 at 12:18 pm
I work in a museum and spent countless hours working my fingers to a bloody point making sure old stuff stays original. This fills me with so much rage that I can’t even begin to think of a snarky comment.
January 6, 2012 at 12:19 pm
*have spent
(Sorry, that would have driven me crazy without a correction.)
January 6, 2012 at 12:23 pm
I love old and vintage stuff. I’m right there with you. Seriously want to smack these people, and cry for the lost beauty now…
January 6, 2012 at 2:28 pm
My father refinishes furniture for a living, particularly late Victorian/Edwardian and early modern stuff… I think this would kill him.
January 6, 2012 at 4:25 pm
A+ for the past perfect.
January 6, 2012 at 6:56 pm
I know what you mean! Those pictures made me almost cringe as much as the one with the smashed violin did. Especially the sideboard fucked up into a bathroom counter made me gasp out loud.
January 7, 2012 at 12:52 am
I had to look three times at least at the first one to understand what I was looking at. I looked at the gorgeous wood colored one, and then at the sink cupboard and did not understand what I was supposed to be seeing, besides a boring, white cupboard.
When I realized it was the same one, my jaw dropped! So pretty, turned into that plain, boring thing..
January 9, 2012 at 11:26 am
and that first one was and is no longer a perfect match to my grandmother’s bedroom set that I snatched up before my family got a hold of and repainted. Makes me want to cry, I know just where I could have put it.
January 10, 2012 at 12:21 am
I know! I wanted to yell, “NOOOO!!” there should be some kind of antique restoration board that would prevent that kind of thing.
January 27, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Can you imagine the time one would need to spend just to sand the paint off the furniture that hasn’t been at least partially torn apart?
I would kill if anyone did such a thing to my family’s hand-built bookshelf.
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Gasp! How do you get that job? Seriously, I’m finishing my BA in history, but I still haven’t decided what I want to go for after that. Your job sounds amazing.
January 6, 2012 at 12:53 pm
first step: apply for internships and volunteer work. at every historical museum/society or archives you can find in your area.
it can be really hard to get a job in a museum without any experience in the kind of work you want to do. lots of museums are hurting for funding, also, because of the economy, just like libraries. get an internship and volunteer at different museums and say “i want to learn and help with restoration and maintenance of the collection” to see if they’ll let you. i know the museum where i work loves volunteers for things like that (though it’s not a history museum) and are usually willing to let them start out doing little things while they learn the ropes.
January 6, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Thanks
And, yep- what keri said. Plus have patience: I started out as a docent/tour guide and worked my way up, it took about five years to start doing the fun stuff. Getting a Masters in Museum Studies helps get you to the fun stuff sooner, but the market is saturated with them right now, unfortunately.
January 6, 2012 at 2:42 pm
That’s one of the sadder things about my educational path. The economy tanks and everyone is like “f museums, we don’t need to LEARN.” The first college I went to offers a masters in archival methods that I’ve been considering for awhile, so if my fiance’s next duty station is here, I may pursue that while volunteering my face off.
January 6, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Also, any chemistry knowledge/experience will give you an edge! Being able to do things like clean a painting without damaging the paint is important.
January 6, 2012 at 12:48 pm
I had to stifle a scream at the sight of this shit. I’m at work.
January 8, 2012 at 2:50 am
I’ve decided just to pretend that the before and after pictures got swapped. With all but the third one, they not only look more tasteful but they also look to be in better condition. That bathroom sink looks like it is in sore need of a new paint job, it really looks like the paint has started to flake off it in spots…..And I don’t even want to talk about that pink monstrosity….
January 6, 2012 at 12:48 pm
Aww yeah, fellow Museum Professionals represent!
January 6, 2012 at 1:04 pm
woot woot!
January 7, 2012 at 3:44 pm
*Pumps fist in the air*
January 6, 2012 at 12:52 pm
I’m just a FJL whose only real knowledge of this shit is from Antiques Roadshow, and I was literally gasping at those transfuckmations. I can’t imagine what they did to an actual professional.
January 6, 2012 at 2:59 pm
“Transfuckmations” is my new favorite word. It’s also the ONLY possible way to describe this shit.
Considering that between both my grandmothers, myself, my father and my sister own one of each of the pieces exactly like (or at least close to) in the above before pics, I’m in tears. I want to go up to NJ and smack these idiots to hell and back a few times. Then take everything they haven’t fucked up yet and give it all to good homes.
January 6, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Also, they can’t fuckin’ spell armoire! Every time it is fuckin’ spelled “airmoire”. Is this because painting shit white makes it like air?
I really have to stop looking before I randomly hit someone.
January 6, 2012 at 1:01 pm
I just noticed this too. At least they got French Provincial right and not (as seen on YouSuckatCraigslist) French Preventional, or French Prudential…
January 6, 2012 at 8:13 pm
I wish there were such a thing as French Preventional, perhaps it could prevent this.
January 7, 2012 at 3:46 pm
You had to do it. You had to tell me about YouSuckatCraigslist. For shame. Do you know how much my productivity is going to drop?
January 6, 2012 at 2:11 pm
it’s the paint fumes. They ignored the “well ventilated area” warning.
And I think these photos make a great PSA against paint huffing.
January 6, 2012 at 2:35 pm
This is your furniture on drugs.
Any questions?
January 6, 2012 at 12:59 pm
It fills me with rage too. That sideboard was gorgeous. What the hell are they thinking?
January 7, 2012 at 6:45 am
unfortunately its a new trend that HGTV designers are hyping in their makeover shows.
they say they are “repurposing that ‘boring old thing’ into something that fits into the 21st century.”
i had to stop watching. they were spraypainting beautiful inlay tables orange and saying how much better it looked.
i think i cried
January 6, 2012 at 1:20 pm
That’s it.
I’m going to become a Shivalanti…
*shank*
January 6, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Not every old thing is worthy of restoration. That being said what they have done is certainly Fugly
January 6, 2012 at 1:26 pm
It hurts my heart to see those beautiful wooden inlays covered in paint like that.
January 6, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Ugh, me too. My heart did the Darth Vader “NOOOOOO!” I can go a little nuts over gorgeously painted furniture–I had to stop googling “Indian painted furniture” because I would get so cranky with my rubbermaid deluxe crap. But I would never ever dream of doing that to such beautiful woodwork. That’s the kind you lovingly restore and pass down for ages. Guuuuh. Ffs, MDF, woman!
January 6, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Except they got all this stuff lovingly thrown away or sold at garage/estate sales for at most 10 bucks each. Maybe 30.
I have friends that go to the thrift stores at least once a week and grab up hand made quilts and embroidery for 1-3 dollars EACH, that someone’s grandchildren couldn’t give a shit about.
I hope their ancestors haunt them for throwing this stuff out to be “repurposed”.
January 6, 2012 at 5:23 pm
We’ve got a few nice pieces – not antique, but solid wood to be sure, none of that particleboard stuff – that my husband picked up from the curb, people just throwing it out. It’s ridiculous.
January 6, 2012 at 5:38 pm
Then they take those quilts and turn them into hobo bunting. Right? Cause they tell me that’s the thing to do with old quilts.
January 8, 2012 at 12:35 pm
They could have at least torn up the quilts for use as hobo wedding buntings!
January 9, 2012 at 8:38 pm
I live in the part of CT where those would go for $100-$300. I’d love to go where pieces like that would go for $30. I’d “save” as many great pieces of furniture that I could.
Where can you get quilts for a few dollars?
January 6, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Ooooo…. thanks for putting me onto Indian Painted Furniture. I just Googled it.
January 6, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Who knew there were so many museum professionals on here? I do some photography for museums, but mostly work for an antiques auction house. My slightly educated glance says that most of what they have transformed is actually 20th century reproductions, good quality, but not priceless antiques.
*The above in no way means I condone this shop’s poor taste, although I do have to admit I like some of them.
January 6, 2012 at 2:30 pm
mid-century repros are becoming the new antiques though, as the “real” pieces are becoming more and more scarce.
January 6, 2012 at 8:19 pm
I saw a book about “Re-purposing” furniture, it had a really cool project on the front where they jazzed up a torn Lay Z Boy, so I looked inside, where I found…I wish I were making it up…”The Blue Willow Eames Dish Chair” I fucking screamed out loud and dropped the book, right there in the bookshop. It haunts me to this day.
January 6, 2012 at 11:31 pm
I found the book. It’s not as awful as I remembered it, but that’s only because I just saw these:
http://www.amazon.com/Wary-Meyers-Tossed-Found-Unconventional/dp/B005CDV6BM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325921365&sr=1-1
January 6, 2012 at 1:34 pm
In the Regretsy Facebook thread on this subject, Helen mentioned that there was a part of the “Quite So Shitty New Jersey” website showcasing furniture not yet ruined by this woman’s touch.
I had to look into the Pandora’s box. I don’t know what’s worse, seeing the damage already done, or imagining what could be in store for these:(NSFHappiness)
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/category_27/UNFINISHED-FURNITURE.htm
January 6, 2012 at 2:13 pm
I have a Depression Eras china cabinet like they show on that page. It’s gorgeous and I would never even dream of fucking it up like they would.
January 6, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Why do they say “All it needs is paint.”??!! No! No it doesn’t need paint! Just stop it…stop it right now. *weeps quietly in the corner*
January 6, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Oh for the love of… they have a vintage trunk. Do you know what I’d do for a trunk in that condition? And all I can think about is the shitty paintjob/”fancy” tabletop she’ll probably put on it for a 30% markup.
January 9, 2012 at 2:57 pm
That they call that hot pink vanity a “RAZZLE DAZZLE VANITY” says everything I need to know.
You take your GLAM RAZZLE DAZZLE HIP SEXY SOOOOO HOT FURNITURE and shove it. Not all of us are hosting raves in our dressing closet.
January 9, 2012 at 9:58 pm
Please, for the love of pasta, someone with money save the sideboards! PLEASE!
Save the 66″ and the 72″ ones and… oh no. She wrote: “This is a BIG one…. perfect for under a flat screen TV!!!” She’s going to drill cable holes in it for components. STOP HER!!!
January 6, 2012 at 1:44 pm
What roquelaure said. Helen, STOP MAKING ME CRY.
January 6, 2012 at 2:23 pm
SOB, sob. Make it stop!! Please! It hurts (and not just my eyes) I own a similar vanity (w/out the mirror & pre-raped)& a very similar rosewood & mahogany dresser that I got cheap because some douchecanoe had “transformed” it with a fucking mosaic made with fucking EGGSHELLS and layers & layers of varnish that took me hours and hours to remove. Somebody needs to call the furniture SVU on this twat.
January 7, 2012 at 8:22 am
I did no such thing!
January 7, 2012 at 4:43 pm
I did say “some” douchecanoe.:) Glad to know that it wasn’t you.
January 6, 2012 at 2:51 pm
exactly what the hell is wrong with people? i understand if it is in such a shape that is is headed for the garbage heap.
January 6, 2012 at 3:25 pm
This. I’ve been known to paint, wallpaper, mosaic and generally fuck up innocent furniture, except the stuff I attack is shit to start with – laminated self-assembly MDF crap, banged up filing cabinets and cheap wooden crates nicked from work and turned into blanket boxes. I also have some actual nice furniture, and no way in hell would I paint stripes on it.
January 7, 2012 at 12:56 pm
I think you’ve got the right idea. Why damage gorgeous old wood pieces that just need a little love and polish when there is so much Ikea in the world?
crap furniture + extreme makeover = improvement
lovely old pieces + extreme makeover = making Regretsians sad
January 6, 2012 at 2:53 pm
As a fellow lover of antiques, I am right there with you. What they did to those pieces of furniture makes me want to WEEP. Seriously… it should be a crime.
January 6, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Yeah. Don’t show this to the Keno twins of Antiques Roadshow–it would kill them.
January 6, 2012 at 8:21 pm
I’ve never worked with antique furniture in any professional capacity, but that hot-pink vanity made me really, really depressed. And the stripes…THE STRIPES?!?! APOPLEXEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
January 6, 2012 at 9:49 pm
I have to agree with you. I was shocked almost speechless by the crassness exhibited. Those ‘transformations’ really should come supplied with eye bleach but, unfortunately it would do no good because, as is often said on the net, what has been seen can not be unseen. That person needs chemical castration forced upon them so that their stupidity / extremely poor taste isn’t passed on to the next generation.
January 7, 2012 at 12:49 am
I’ll cop to being a furniture painter. But the stuff I’ve painted is from the 70s and 80s and mass-manufactured. I wouldn’t touch a hand made or antique piece, which many of the ones pictured seem to be.
January 7, 2012 at 7:33 am
Should you need to sustain your rage, check out what Design*Sponge often disseminates as ‘improvements.’
January 7, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Ha, this post made me think of Design*Sponge, too!
January 7, 2012 at 10:05 am
In my community, I’m very involved in historic preservation and restoration. These kinds of “transformatins” are not limited to furniture – we could do an entire topic just on horrible architectural transformations as well.
I also collect waterfall-deco furniture, so this kind of fuckery never ceases to sadden me…
January 7, 2012 at 4:44 pm
This can go the other way, too. People who want to “expose the natural wood” can be just as bad, if not worse. My apartment was probably built in the 40′s, and still has the original cheap plywood cabinets. Some nitwit who lived here before me wanted to “expose the beauty of the natural wood” and in the process, used some kind of stripper that dissolved the filler in the plywood, leaving huge holes in bevels in the edges of the cabinets. It took a whole tube of wood filler to mitigate the damage. They look about a thousand times better painted a period appropriate sea foam green. People who assume all wood is worth exposing and all “antiques” are worth saving are equally guilty of crimes against taste.
January 7, 2012 at 1:57 pm
I LOATHE when people take good wood and paint over it….I get painting shitty wood, but beautiful wood??? GAAAAH!!!
January 21, 2012 at 8:18 am
I am so, so glad that I am not the only one who’s blood boiled over this BS! I went to her website, and then to her FB page and Oh Dear Friends, it gets even… better? On her FB page she:
1) breathlessly talks about her favorite brand of SPRAY PAINT, with which she would “LOVE” to cover everything in her house.
2) shows a picture of her parents OLD BARN, and goes on to say she has apparently asked her folks to SAVE THE OLD BARNWOOD so that she can “do something with it”
AND… BEST OF ALL
3) SHE IS ACTUALLY AN ANTIQUES DEALER! So not only is She IRREVERSIBLY f’ing up this awesome old hardwood furniture, but she knows what she’s messing up!
This is no ordinary douchebag, this well-oiled pig is a true Regretsy Trifecta.
January 21, 2012 at 8:21 am
also, I am totally tempted to tell her, publicly on her FB page, that she really got the regretsy crowd going. thought maybe she’d like to come and see what actual furniture restorers had to say about her hideous crap, but someone stupid enough to do this in the first place won’t care, and certainly won’t be affected by reason.
January 6, 2012 at 12:19 pm
I don’t know which hurts worse – my heart, my eyes, or my sense of style….
January 6, 2012 at 12:19 pm
I’m from Jersey. I promise we’re not all crazy.
Does saying I kind of like the mosaic invalidate my previous statement? …shit.
January 6, 2012 at 12:21 pm
I like the bare feet of the photographer reflected in the mirror.
January 6, 2012 at 12:25 pm
I like the mosaic too, but not destroying a beautiful old piece of furniture in the process.
Fellow Jersey Girl
January 6, 2012 at 12:25 pm
You can like the mosaic … on a POS from Ikea. This stuff just makes me ill.
January 6, 2012 at 1:18 pm
THIS! There’s plenty of cheap shitty furniture you can work on out there.
I like to alter my clothes for fit and style but I go to Goodwill for that. I don’t pull from racks at fucking Chanel or pick out antique clothes on display at the Smithsonian.
You can RESTORE vintage and antique items, you update/experiment with everything else.
January 6, 2012 at 1:28 pm
A lot of the furniture they work on is relatively cheap-a lot of antique reproduction furniture was produced in the US in the 1940′s for soldiers returning from WWII, and is plentiful at auctions at lower end antique shops.
January 6, 2012 at 8:32 pm
I’m not particularly crazy about certain “antiques”, particularly the cheap repros that are old enough to be “real” antiques now, and there is a part of me that enjoys seeing them destroyed, and yet I find no joy in this, they somehow made them even worse!
I write this sitting in a fake Eames Chair…
January 6, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Yeah!
Transformed furniture is quite popular from certain artists where I live. They do gorgeous, elaborate paint jobs, and they don’t ruin antiques that were already beautiful to do it.
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
I like the mosaic too, but do it to something too far gone to be refinished… or a crappy, newer dresser that has no redeeming qualities.
January 6, 2012 at 12:53 pm
I was just thinking, having grown up in Jersey, this shit definitely passes for chic and yeah I liked the mosaic too LOL Still that hot pink dresser fucking BURNS:(
January 6, 2012 at 3:27 pm
I like the mosaic too. I just think I would like it more on something that wasn’t more beautiful without it.
January 6, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Wow that made me almost as stabby as the violin.
Those of us that are still stuck with IKEA bookshelves would love some real furniture, even slightly distressed. LOr I would have before it was FUCKING PINK.
January 6, 2012 at 12:20 pm
good lord. i just gasped aloud. i’m with roquelaure. what crimes!!
January 6, 2012 at 12:20 pm
I’m physically ill. This is 1000 times worse than the idiots who destroy antique books by stamping crap on their pages. I can’t come up with a joke. I jsut want to slap these stupid bitches.
January 6, 2012 at 12:20 pm
The sideboard makes me sad. Hell, even if I wanted to turn it into a sink vanity for some mad reason I’d like to think I’d have enough sense to keep the original color and wood inlays!
January 6, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Looking over her shop, it seems like part of the motivation of painting over EVERYTHING is to get it to match the walls/etc. If you’re going to have an antique, prepare for it not to match anything. C’est la vie.
January 6, 2012 at 3:22 pm
It’s kind of the point of having antiques, isn’t it? I mean, I can get a little obsessive about matching colors in paint, area rugs, upholstery etc., but I’m happy if the wood tones and styles harmonize.
January 6, 2012 at 4:00 pm
wouldnt that shit be a bit confusing when you stumble home in a drunken stupor and cant tell your armoire from your wall…… wait, if they have this crap maybe they deserve it
January 6, 2012 at 12:20 pm
I like how, after they’ve ruined the sideboard ripping the top off to add a sink, they not only painted it eggshell (the least noble color ever invented) but then “distressed” the paint to make it even shabbier.
What’s the opposite of “shabby chic”? I’ll venture, “shabby start.”
January 6, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Hehe…I read that as shabby shart….
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
I did too
January 6, 2012 at 12:59 pm
“Shabby Shart” is accurate.
January 6, 2012 at 12:44 pm
So they put a lot of work into making it look crappy? If your “talent” is indistinguishable from “doing a piss-poor job” then maybe you need to re-think things.
January 6, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Or maybe I need to think about starting a new career….nah I have too much self respect than to produce this kind of crap.
January 6, 2012 at 3:23 pm
I couldn’t bear to do it to innocent antiques.
January 8, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Welcome to shabby chic.
January 6, 2012 at 1:40 pm
How about “stabby chic?”
January 6, 2012 at 2:26 pm
or “shabby shit?”
January 6, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I’m going to remember phrase. Some of the shabby chic stuff was okay when it first came along, but now it seems more like shabby shit.
January 6, 2012 at 12:20 pm
I didn’t realize it was possible to cry and vomit at the same time. I have a vanity that could be that one’s twin from my great-grandmother’s house. I would never, in a bajillion years, even think about painting it.
January 6, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Never been really drunk? Trust me, it IS very possible to cry and vomit simultaneously…
January 6, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Although, not sure if I’ve done it over a piece of antique furniture, I might add.
January 6, 2012 at 12:28 pm
I guess I’m just a happy drunk. I’ve never been a crier.
January 6, 2012 at 3:25 pm
I’m just a sleepy drunk, and a lightweight. Two glasses of wine and I’m snoozing on the sofa. World’s Dullest candidate.
January 6, 2012 at 12:56 pm
My daughter has one just like it in her room that was her great-grandmother’s. If she EVER does something like that to her’s I’ll disown her.
January 6, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Vomiting always makes me cry, automatically.
January 6, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Stay classy, New Jersey.
January 6, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Hey, we don’t ALL suck. And remember, Snooki is from NEW YORK.
January 6, 2012 at 12:25 pm
The entire cast with the exception of Sammi is from NY.
January 6, 2012 at 12:38 pm
It’s kinda sad that you know that.
January 6, 2012 at 2:39 pm
Hey now, it’s not hard to find out, and I have to attempt to defend my state somehow.
January 8, 2012 at 12:41 pm
She’s from upstate NY. We disown her.
January 6, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Sorry, I should have said North Jersey. There’s definitely a lot of awesome people from NJ, and I feel bad that they get stereotyped as oompa loompas with terrible fashion choices and alcohol problems.
January 6, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Okay, I’ll cop to a fondness for teh boozes, but that’s all.
January 6, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Whew! You had us worried for a sec.
January 6, 2012 at 2:19 pm
I’m in New Jersey. I suppose I’m *from* Brooklyn (as in that’s where my mom farted me out of her womb), by way of Northern Virginia and Philadelphia.
But I’m stuck here in New Jersey, apologizing for this bullshit.
January 7, 2012 at 1:10 pm
I don’t even live in New Jersey any more, but I still try to defend it. I mean, it is stinky, but not as bad as its reputation. Love ya, New Jersey.
January 6, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Shhhhh! As a New Yorker (from Long Island, no less) we work very hard to keep that information quiet.
January 6, 2012 at 12:21 pm
… I’m going to Karma. At least the middle-aged grenades there are hotter than this shit. Not by much, but it’s a margin of difference I’m willing to put up with.
January 6, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Well, people with no taste have to shop somewhere.
January 6, 2012 at 2:04 pm
Ikea. The vanilla of decour.
January 6, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Look in the mirror on the mosaic vanity!!! She’s standing on another of her “transformations.” The amount of respect she has for these antiques is astounding.
January 6, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Also in the mirror I spy another “transformed” piece of furniture! I bet she has a whole bedroom set that just screams “I shit on the idea of preserving the past”.
January 6, 2012 at 1:22 pm
I noticed that too!
What’s the over-under on when she’ll start commenting here to defend her shit.
January 6, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Hasbrouck Heights? It figures. I stay the fuck out of North Jersey for many reasons – and here’s one more.
Hopefully someone from North Jersey will help out and go do two things: rescue as many innocent antiques as possible, and practice their throwing aim with some molotov cocktails.
January 6, 2012 at 12:41 pm
I live very near to this store (unfortunately). North Jersey folks are always making fun of South Jersey, saying it’s full of hicks down there. But goddamn, I bet people in South Jersey aren’t painting their antiques with pink and white stripes. Holy shit.
January 6, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Preach it!
January 6, 2012 at 12:50 pm
If anyone gets near my French Deco dining room set with anything other than a tablecloth, they’re going to be missing a limb.
January 6, 2012 at 2:20 pm
I’m in Central Jersey and I try to stay the hell out of the north/south arguments.
January 6, 2012 at 2:43 pm
South Jersey > North Jersey. We want to secede! Wikipedia includes Camden and Burlington county in it’s definition of South Jersey but I can do without either of those, especially Camden itself.
January 6, 2012 at 7:08 pm
We’ve tried to sell Camden to PA. Surprisingly, they don’t want it either.
January 10, 2012 at 4:56 pm
I lived in South Jersey for a few months while I was doing my Master’s research, and I LOVED it there. It was nothing at all like I expected Jersey to be. I went in with a lot of apprehension. haha But it was fantastic. The refuges, bays, and pine barrens were gorgeous and the people were absolutely fantastic. And I never saw one bumpit or fistpump will I was there. XD
January 10, 2012 at 4:57 pm
while I was there*
January 6, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Believe me, if I was still in north Jersey I would! this crap sickens me. But alas, I left NJ almost 9 years ago and very rarely return to my old stomping grounds (though I told my husband I am very tempted to make a special trip just to choke a bitch…)
January 6, 2012 at 12:21 pm
I am weeping.
January 6, 2012 at 12:22 pm
I’m very grateful for this post. You should see some of the ridiculous ideas that are sold at my antique mall, all just to make a buck on idiots. Some involve seashells.
January 6, 2012 at 12:47 pm
If glitter is the herpes of crafts, seashells are the syphilis.
January 6, 2012 at 1:26 pm
If I could thumbs up this like 17 more times, it still wouldn’t be enough to express how awesome I think this post is. Seashell syphillis? Awesome.
January 6, 2012 at 2:38 pm
My husband has used seashells in furniture before. To be fair though,
1.) He built the furniture himself (a stepstool for my oldest son and two barstools for his mom.)
2.) The seashells were ones that my son had collected that summer.
3.) He made a cutout in the top of the furniture arranged the shells along with some driftwood metal fragments found on the beach, etc. on top of a layer of sand.
4.)He used an epoxy resin to fill in the cutout, 1/8″ layer at a time to make a perfectly clear, solid brick of resin.
It’s difficult to explain, but really quite beautiful and totally herpes free.
I totally agree that MOST seashell crapfts are hideous.
January 6, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Oops, syphilis free.
January 6, 2012 at 3:29 pm
That stepstool sounds pretty, and something cool for your son to pass down to his own kids someday.
January 6, 2012 at 2:55 pm
so what then is the paint ?? warts???
January 6, 2012 at 5:24 pm
Spray tan. Or got-them-while-drunk tattoos.
January 6, 2012 at 2:04 pm
Oh my god do you live in Rochester? XD
January 6, 2012 at 2:28 pm
I lived in Florida. Barring acts of sexual deviancy, if it has been done with a seashell, I’ve seen it. Hmm, might explain why I detest about 90% of humanity.
January 6, 2012 at 10:48 pm
I’ve seen the horrors of Florida kitsch. Too bad, they have some nice shells to work with.
Visit Nantucket for true works of art and restoration of Humanity’s Standing.
I’ve seen antique Sailor’s Valentines get $10,000-$20,000.
A good reproduction can get $1,000-$2,000
January 6, 2012 at 12:22 pm
I worked in the antique business for years. Those freaking morons need to be strung up by their thumbs (or at least have them broken) so they can’t trash anymore furniture that would take less time to restore properly than it did for them to ruin it permanently!
I’m guessing the WalMart paint department does great business with them for Hot Pink.
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
That’s not paint. That’s Pepto-Bismol mixed with mashed Canada mints.
January 6, 2012 at 2:56 pm
nah string them up by their thumbs and poke them with sharpened wood slivers that are 80+ years old and laced with salt
January 6, 2012 at 12:23 pm
I had to stop after two pages, my brain was exploding.
If the furniture was totally wrecked, I could understand, but alot of this stuff was in good condition. WHY???!!!
January 6, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Oh god, the curved headboard on the bottom of page 3…
Hey, you know what would make this intricate gleaming woodgrain patter better? If we just slapped a coat of white paint over the whole damn thing.
January 6, 2012 at 12:28 pm
pattern* I suck at the typing today.
January 6, 2012 at 12:46 pm
I stopped looking on her site after that one… couldn’t stand to see any more of it. The wood is absolutely beautiful – what a waste!
January 6, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Holy shit. That’s the one that caused my fury stroke a few comments down.
January 6, 2012 at 1:32 pm
I want to find her and tell her that slapping white paint on shit — nay, not shit, but beautiful antique furniture, is not a “transformation”.
Everything is painted white — everything! Was there a sale on white paint or something?
January 7, 2012 at 8:14 am
Seriously, she has no creativity. I looked through her before and after gallery, and guess how I could tell which one was which?
ALL the afters (with the exception of the hot pink striped monstrosity) were slapped with a shitty coat of white paint.
January 6, 2012 at 2:31 pm
That sideboard is particularly heartbreaking (I’m afraid if I got to her page I’ll pass out from shock so have limited my viewing). She took an antique item, in decent condition and “transformed” it into something that looks like particle board?? And she’s proud!??
January 6, 2012 at 12:23 pm
The vanity that went from just a little TLC to hot pink Barbie monstrosity is physically painful to me. Not only to my eyes but it stabs at my heart. All the love and craftsmanship that went into all of those lovely items and they were turned into something that looked like the colour scheme was chosen by shaking up muppet and seeing what colours came out when it got sick.
this may be one of the reasons I go broke is that I want to adopt these kinds of pieces before tragic things happen to them. Mostly for me its vintage textiles- but I wish I could have been there to save that vanity.
January 6, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Holy crap, I had that same flat-top vanity! I got it, along with a bed, bureau, and dresser, from my Great Aunt when I was in high school. It wasn’t really my style, so given the chance, I probably would have done the same thing they did. Then again, I was in HIGH SCHOOL at the time and had the mind of a moron teenager…
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
“moron” is supposed to be crossed out. The HTML showed up correctly int he preview…
January 6, 2012 at 12:27 pm
*in the. Christ, I’m retarded today.
January 6, 2012 at 12:24 pm
I really hate people that do this to old furniture. May Cthulhu rid the earth of them. Especially for that last abomination.
January 6, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Now, now. Cthulhu is an eldritch abomination. Let’s not be putting the Great Old Ones in the same category as this horror.
January 6, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Exactly right. You can’t just call up eldritch abominations any time you want to cleanse the earth of scum who slap paint onto defenseless, noble antique furniture for the sake of shabby chic. Have some respect, that sort of stuff is beneath Cthulu.
That violin a few posts back, though… the one who did that, Cthulu really should come take care of.
January 6, 2012 at 9:30 pm
I’m with you guys. The great god Cthulhu has no time for these neanderthals.
January 6, 2012 at 12:24 pm
This whole post makes me want to cry, but that sideboard reminds me so much of a larger one my dad did when he was Not A Bum. He had made the diagonal elements from floor boards from his grandfather’s farm house, and just the idea of someone turning that piece into something as crappy as this one makes me sick.
January 6, 2012 at 12:24 pm
I don’t see this as being much different to the knob-end who smashed up that antique violin for PayPal – it’s about the same level of desecration
January 6, 2012 at 5:30 pm
I was having similar thoughts.
As a historian who became one in part because of a love of Cool Old Things, I get a little stabbity thinking about this stuff. I don’t think of old things as sacred relics, never to be touched or altered, but there’s thoughtfully adding value, and there’s destroying stuff because it’s easier and requires less thought.
I hate the stupidity and laziness as much as the aesthetic nightmares that resulted.
January 6, 2012 at 12:24 pm
I keep hitting Ctrl+Z, but nothing’s happening.
January 9, 2012 at 3:05 am
Bless you for trying!
January 6, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Sadly, I’ve seen really worse on very serious decorating websites..
People, what did wood do to you?
January 6, 2012 at 12:37 pm
http://www.designsponge.com/2008/11/before-and-after-arielles-sideboard-desk.html
found it.
January 6, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Oh crap. I feel the need to apologize for Portland once again. They could have left the poor antique alone and made a cool modern desk by itself.
It is not true. “Paint a bird on it” does not work for everything.
January 6, 2012 at 1:04 pm
the china cabinet isn’t the same in the before and the after :
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/item_1269/Airmoire-After.htm
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/item_1061/Vintage-China-Cabinet-..-Before.htm
January 6, 2012 at 2:54 pm
oops wrong links,
here’s before :
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/item_1061/Vintage-China-Cabinet-..-Before.htm
here’s (a totally different cabinet) after : http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/item_1062/Vintage-China-Cabinet-..-After.htm
January 6, 2012 at 3:33 pm
Fucking Portland hipsters. I’m going to start saying I’m from Beaverton and let people look it up.
January 6, 2012 at 1:14 pm
Fuck that is hideous. Someone should be punished.
January 6, 2012 at 3:33 pm
If I saw the final product without seeing the original piece, I would think that it was an interesting piece that might work if they used some different tones in an attempt to actually go with the ends.
But, knowing what went into it… it’s kind of like finding out how hot dogs are made, you know? If hot dogs were made from the hearts of beautiful unicorns near extinction while the rest of the unicorn’s murdered, unavenged corpse probably ended sawed up in a Dumpster somewhere, or waiting pathetically by the curb in the ruining rain for someone to pick it up and save the murderer the expense or hassle of throwing it away. And also if hot dogs didn’t even taste that great anyway.
Yeah, exactly like that.
January 6, 2012 at 3:46 pm
It takes a very special kind of insanity to cover over carving of that beauty with horrible paint.
January 6, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Whoops, wrong reply. What I meant to say to this one is… that is horrific.
January 7, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Arrrgh! That’s no sideboard. That’s PURE EVIL. Why didn’t they just use some plywood and a 70′s TV? And that hideous taupe paint, of course.
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
It has to be…or should be some kind of criminal offense to ruin that beautiful furniture with that shade of pink and some white house paint. Dear God. Even Ray Charles thinks it’s ugly.
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Glad I’m in NYC. Stay over the bridge, renovating bitches.
January 6, 2012 at 12:27 pm
I meant on that side of the bridge. What can I say: I’m “distressed”
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Went browsing around the site…
The job done on this vanity (at a customer’s request, so they say) makes me have to forcibly remember that eugenics has historically been a horrible, horrible idea.
Before:
After:
January 6, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Also stretching the ‘by request’ idea is that they now have that piece painted green and listed for sale in their shop.
January 6, 2012 at 1:38 pm
I weep. I actually own a full dresser version of one of these deco-looking pieces with a big round frameless mirror. I can’t imagine doing THAT to it. I want to go pat it and soothe it in case it somehow became aware that I’m looking at this…
January 6, 2012 at 3:36 pm
We’ve got a shop out here that carries all kinds of secondhand household stuff. He’s got some like this that I’d love to have, at good prices, that just needs a little TLC. (And I have a SIL who learned furniture restoration and now has a houseful of beautiful antiques that she restored).
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Eeeek!
My house is covered in antique furniture that is completely untouched and I love every piece! This makes me sad.
And as a roller derby girl, messing with knee high stockings is a major sin.
January 7, 2012 at 8:49 am
Hey… I’m an NSO out of Roc City Roller Derby! Which league are you from?
Maybe we could do an inter-league raid and ‘blocking practice’ on this group of furniture-fiddlers…
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
January 6, 2012 at 12:49 pm
If you don’t like antique furniture from a particular era, that’s totally fine. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to RUIN it just because you don’t like it personally.
Instead, sell/give the antique to someone who WILL appreciate it, and then get yourself a style of furniture you like. Or alter something that isn’t particularly special. For example, I bought a hideous 80s-era desk from Goodwill for $15. A few coats of paint and new hardware and it turned out great. I would NEVER have done that with an antique, though.
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
I think you meant “WE GOT A SHIT-UATION.”
January 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
I was looking at the site and some of them have painted furniture on the left and stripped down to the wood on the right. I thought, wow, some of these are really nice. THen I read the caption and realized the “after” and “before” photos were just reversed
January 6, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Yeah, I was disappointed in the same way
I was especially sad about the china cabinet with queene anne legs and glass on 3 sides. . .it’s almost certainly walnut, and they’re so hard to find with the glass intact. They may as well have taken a baseball bat too it after painting it like that–what a sacralige.
January 6, 2012 at 12:27 pm
First the violin, then this. I’m not sure what’s worse…a musical instrument in pieces or antique furniture painted in Pepto pink and white. Either way, it makes me physically ill.
January 6, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Can we send her work through paypal and then claim it to be forgeries? Just askin’
January 6, 2012 at 12:27 pm
January 6, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Gnomestress, you are such a scamp! *shakes head and smiles*
January 6, 2012 at 11:51 pm
I seriously can’t un-see that face in the original photo now.
January 6, 2012 at 12:27 pm
My mother used to drag me around antique shopping all day on the weekends in old Ellicott City in Baltimore. She would flip her shit if she saw what was going on here. Probably drive to NJ and deliver a beat-down in person. The “new” versions of these items need to be destroyed. I’d rather see them gone forever than gussied up like Jersey trash!
January 6, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Okay, I actually love the striped one. However, why not just buy a cheap new one and destroy that? D: I love buying cheap things and making them cool. ..Not expensive, vintage things to make them look like cheap things painted to look cool.
January 6, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Oh I didn’t see this before I left my almost identical (in sentiment) comment. I’m so glad I’m not alone.
January 6, 2012 at 2:29 pm
I’m sure these were cheap as hell. Or picked from the trash.
You have no idea what people throw away around here.
Selling used furniture, you get 10 cents on the dollar OF THE ORIGINAL PRICE not counting for inflation. I learned this the hard way with my parent’s stuff after they died.
We would have made out better donating the lot to goodwill and taking a tax deduction than what we made from the “estate auction”
I did keep everything I even remotely liked, however. Because there’s no way I can afford furniture of that quality myself. I’ll be handing it all down to my grandkids at some point. they better not paint it or I will come back and haunt them!
January 8, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Really? Prices for furniture at the estate sales I go to up here are absurd. Maybe I need to go to more auctions. Or rent a truck and drive a few hours south.
January 6, 2012 at 12:28 pm
as a professional museum person (yes, that’s a technical term), I want to throw up.
As a matter of fact, if I throw up on something old, I bet it’ll still look better than any of that (and be reversible).
January 6, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Oh, good Gods. That poor striped server made me cringe so hard I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to stop.
January 6, 2012 at 12:28 pm
At least some of the stuff could still be saved by stripping and refinishing.
January 7, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Like me!
January 6, 2012 at 12:29 pm
I hate to admit this, but I kind of like the pink striped one, because I’m pretty much always into pink and stripes. God I am the WORST.
Caveat: I would NEVER do that to an antique. I would find a pos at Ikea or something, and do it to that.
January 6, 2012 at 12:30 pm
My nephew turns beautiful antique china cabinets into Lizard enclosures by cutting the panels out of the doors and installing glass. I fear for the family heirlooms.
January 6, 2012 at 12:39 pm
hey, at least it’s useful?
silver lining?
No?
sorry :/
January 6, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Clearly, that vanity and server must have sinned mightily – barked many shins, stunned toes galore – to deserve such a garishly pink fate.
Someone, please hand me the vodka.
January 6, 2012 at 12:30 pm
I’m in the next town over from this store. Want me to stop in and say hello from Regretsy??
January 6, 2012 at 12:36 pm
You should have a candle light vigil for all the beautiful murdered antiques.
January 6, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Strangers would walk by and be like “Oh my god did someone die?”
“Yes, hundreds of pieces of furniture have been murdered inside this store.”
January 6, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Exactly. And the prayer signs should have pictures of the abominations that were painted pink with a RIP underneath. *shivers*
January 6, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Do you hear their screams Clarice? (from the Silence of the Divans).
January 6, 2012 at 12:38 pm
You should have them destroy an antique by painting “CF4L” on it. If they are going to ruin shit anyway, might as well have them turn it into some good shit.
January 6, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Could you maybe just surreptitiously write CF4L in lipstick on the mirrors? You know, some easily removed fuckery, not actual vandalism….
January 6, 2012 at 12:31 pm
As per usual, members of our society adopting the attitude that “old = crap.” You can just hear them say “Really, Tony, the only way to save these wooden pieces of garbage is to update them with some hot pink.”
January 6, 2012 at 12:31 pm
OMG did you see the silver chair in their shop?
http://www.etsy.com/listing/74210827/silver-glam-ornate-chair
I want to puke now.
January 6, 2012 at 12:34 pm
I had to leave the site after that silver chair.
January 6, 2012 at 12:38 pm
The Silver Chair is awesome. I bet that’s where she sits to get her ideas.
January 6, 2012 at 12:47 pm
If you like the silver chair, you’ll love the magician’s nephew.
January 6, 2012 at 2:33 pm
is that real silver lame leather or did they just put a coat of rustoleum over some vinyl?
Will my polyester dress react and stick to that chair, I wonder?
If I were doing a stage production of Narnia, I’d use it for the Ice Queens throne, however. Maybe it’s a set piece. That’s what I’ll tell myself so I can sleep at night.
January 6, 2012 at 6:37 pm
Yep, ideas like “I wonder if anyone is really stupid enough to pay $475.00 for this silver spray painted piece of shit”.
January 6, 2012 at 6:36 pm
But she used only the pure white paint! It’s so pure and glam!
January 6, 2012 at 12:35 pm
It has 120 admirers
That’s 120 people who actually think this constitutes good taste 
January 6, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Are you sure that means they like it? Maybe it’s like a train wreck, and they just can’t look away.
January 6, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Yeah – I think that’s in the same sense as admiring someone who drinks 18 beers and jumps off a roof. You’re impressed – but not in a good way.
January 6, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Etsy needs a little skull icon next to the heart icon, so we can let others know what items and shops we hate.
January 6, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Now, now, that would be “calling out” and Etsy doesn’t like anything that harshes the cupcakes’ mellow.
January 6, 2012 at 12:47 pm
The silver chair is where the evil serpent/demon/witch ties her victims. Of *course* she does her best thinking there.
January 6, 2012 at 1:01 pm
And it’s been “coverd in silver lame” so you know it’s extra special!
January 6, 2012 at 1:38 pm
oh yeah cause that stuff never rips or sheds glitter herpes on your ass after a year… nooo never. ‘Cause that wouldn’t be classy.
January 6, 2012 at 12:32 pm
I’m seriously re-thinking painting my beat up dining set now. Jebus.
January 6, 2012 at 12:33 pm
The disabled guy doesn’t do restorations, but even he was cringing and swearing at these before and afters. And this is a guy who didn’t blink when he ripped off his own fingernail in an unfortunate carpentry incident.
But apparently even that wasn’t as unfortunate as these.
January 6, 2012 at 12:34 pm
My wife and I have several pieces of old furniture that we want to restore to as close to original as we can. We know that it’s going to be a lot of hard work, but it’ll pay off once we’re done.
Shit like this makes me die a little inside.
January 6, 2012 at 12:48 pm
Good for you! Seriously, I can kind of stomach some of the really really really banged up/mistreated pieces of furniture being painted because at least they aren’t being tossed in the garbage.
But some of the stuff that is in perfect condition that these fuck-hats then slap a coat of white paint on makes me so mad! This one is such a waste!
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/item_189/Ornate-Server-Before.htm
“This server has lots of potential… beautiful carving work…. but, it looked a little too “dark and tired”……”
Fuck you and your spray paint.
January 6, 2012 at 1:10 pm
The background of that website victimized me.
January 6, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Before- Beautiful wood finish antiques
After-White primer piles of crap
Seriously…that’s what nearly all pieces are. Congrats antique killers. You can paint things white.
Here is your gold star for the day.
January 6, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Did you see the GORGEOUS headboard with the wood grains going in different directions so it formed a pattern (I’m sure there’s a more technical term for it, but I’m too angry to find it out)? Bitch slapped some primer on it and called it a day. You can see her god damn brush strokes. Speaking of strokes, I think I’m having a fury-induced one.
January 6, 2012 at 1:03 pm
Yeah…I did. It was hard to see. Most of them had BEAUTIFUL wood grains to them. Now they look like GoodWill rejects. I’d kill for furniture that beautiful, before the Furniture Serial Killers got hold of them. SO sad.
January 6, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Where is Dexter when you need him?
January 6, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Or the Mob. (Cue theme from “The Godfather” and Brando talking about this).
January 6, 2012 at 1:44 pm
That’s what kills me. Like this headboard:
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/item_874/Curved-Headboard-Before.htm
that got some white paint slapped on it and completely lost all the workmanship that went into the original piece:
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/item_875/Curved-Headboard-After.htm
Extra points for the lovely chain link fence background.
January 6, 2012 at 2:36 pm
It looks like it’s been set out for the garbage in the after picture (our trash bin is right near a fence like that).
and it doesn’t look like “after” to me. It looks like “stage 1″ of a repaint. but Oh my god why did she cover the wood grain like that?!!
January 6, 2012 at 2:48 pm
My Goodwill sofa cried out in pain at that headboard.
January 6, 2012 at 2:46 pm
That’s the fucking headboard that once was beautiful! Just look at those terrible brush strokes.
January 6, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Oh my god. Are they HIGH? The pattern was so pretty before and now it just looks like total shit. Seriously, are they capable of anything but slapping paint on stuff?
January 9, 2012 at 8:33 am
That was the one that really got to me too! Some of the others were only so-so beforehand, so they weren’t such a loss- but this was a real piece of art.
Still I’d like to think that sometime in the distant future some lucky person is going to look through Aunt Tyffanii’s ugly old white furniture and before carting off the hideousness will be clever enough to strip the paint and discover the glory beneath. It cheers me a little.
January 6, 2012 at 12:35 pm
These pieces are to “restoration” as the Human Centipede is to “cosmetic surgery.”
January 6, 2012 at 12:35 pm
These look like pieces you’d find in a college off-campus apartment, furniture that’s been there for 25 years and the same number of tenants. Every so often, the landlord slaps a coat of paint on it to cover up burns from incense and water rings from beer cans.
I’ve thought about repainting some of my furniture, but it’s nearly all particle-board junk where the faux-woodgrain decal has been damaged. Why oh why would anyone do this to actual quality wooden furniture, and why oh why would anyone pay money for it? Why not just buy a new piece of unfinished furniture and paint it whatever color? Why ruin an antique?
January 6, 2012 at 12:48 pm
I have a bright, robin’s egg blue table in my dining room. It was my uncle’s in his first apartment. When I got it, it was bright yellow courtesy of my uncle. We tried taking the yellow off to see if it was pretty underneath, but it wasn’t. I think it might JUST be paint in the form of a table, because there was brown under the yellow and white under that. The difference is, it is in no way an antique – it’s particle-board crap from the 60s. To do this to something beautiful? My mind shudders.
January 6, 2012 at 12:35 pm
HGTV and their full slate of “design” shows must be stopped. They’re ruining our antiques, and vomiting this kind of shit onto the unsuspecting world at large. Design on a dime my ass, this was design on a dime bag….
January 6, 2012 at 12:45 pm
They sanded it all first anyway (maybe I assume too much). I don’t understand why they didn’t just properly refinish any of it. New stain and lacquer would not have exceeded the cost of the other material, it would only have required a little more patience.
January 6, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Because they wanted “fun” and “whimsy.”
January 6, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Hey now. Bash the furniture crap all you want but leave the weed out of it.
January 6, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Hear, hear.
January 6, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Tell me about it. When we bought our house, the sellers had apparently been watching too much HGTV. All the custom trimwork had been painted cream. When we repainted the walls, the painter’s tape actually pulled off the cream paint, revealing the original white paint. They hadn’t bothered to sand or prime, just slapped some paint on it. The living room and dining room trim looked like it had a disease until I could get around to scraping/sanding/priming/repainting all of it.
Their surname is the equivalent of “moron” in our house, as well as a curse word.
January 6, 2012 at 12:36 pm
They stole that furniture from the Pon Pon Pon set!!!
January 6, 2012 at 12:40 pm
it made me think of Ponponpon too!
January 6, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Especially the striped one. Except the Pon Pon Pon did it better.
January 6, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Jesus. This is a crime against antiquity.
January 6, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Crying as I barf. Somebody come and hold my hair back for me please. Ugh.
January 6, 2012 at 12:37 pm
I can’t bear to click on the link. That makes me want to cry.
January 6, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Vintage schmintage.
January 6, 2012 at 1:40 pm
That painting was way to old and tired looking. Way to whimsy it up! Could use some glitter, though…
January 6, 2012 at 2:45 pm
You forgot the googly eyes.
January 6, 2012 at 5:25 pm
And hipster mustache.
January 6, 2012 at 8:35 pm
January 6, 2012 at 7:29 pm
Needs duck lips!
http://img.memecenter.com/uploaded/Duck-Face-Mona-Lisa_3434818037f6b889a4e549f122fbd4f9.jpg
January 6, 2012 at 12:40 pm
So the whole “shabby” idea is to take pretty much anything from any time period and just paint it white (I’m sorry a tasty shade of cream or some bullshit) and then just sand the corners to show what you just painted over?
What am I missing here? Why the fuck does everything have to be white (or apparently hot pink)?
January 6, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Because then you don’t have to actually put in any thought or significant work and can just churn out “transformations”.
January 6, 2012 at 12:41 pm
transformation = thick coat of killz on everything? why is white the only solution??
January 6, 2012 at 12:59 pm
WHY MUST EVERYTHING BE PAINTED WHITE?! I don’t understand, and it’s making my brain hurt. How is WHITE paint the solution to everything? For fucks sake, if you’re going to mutilate vintage furniture, do it with some imagination!!
January 6, 2012 at 7:36 pm
Be careful what you wish for…look what happened when they used their “imagination.” That crazy ass silver chair! Nearly burned my damned retinas.
January 6, 2012 at 12:42 pm
I’m having trouble breathing. They painted over all of that beautiful, priceless, hard and fruit wood veneer? My grandma’s antiques and I are about to file a restraining order.
Fixing them with fire would at least have provided a dignified end.
January 6, 2012 at 3:56 pm
I have two beautiful oak columns in my house restored from a fire. The fire didn’t do much to the columns but scorch the paint. (It must have been some seriously flame retardant paint, because they looked covered in burnt marshmellows from every angle, but the wood was somehow completely unharmed. I’d throw in a “praise the lord!” here, but it’d just feel insincere, whether insincerely religious or insincerely sassy I don’t know. So I’ll just end with a “…Huh.” of wonderment.) Still, it took ages to strip it all away, and I’m afraid I wasn’t ambitious enough to tackle the delicate task of scorch-stripping the ornate Dorian toppers, which were merely blackened rather than bubbly, so I left them. Not my proudest moment, but…
Trust me, fire would be infinitely preferable to this.
January 6, 2012 at 12:42 pm
also, “shabby chic”: i do not think it means what you think it means.
January 9, 2012 at 8:36 am
She’s got the shabby part down pat.
January 6, 2012 at 12:43 pm
I’m a guy so I don’t know much about interior design. I am, however, a lover of history and antiques. As such I have the following comment for Not Too Shabby, “Fuck you! Fuck you in your fucking jello mold brain you fucking fuck!”
January 6, 2012 at 12:44 pm
So, does she even have oil, lacquer, wax, varnish? … anything that is actually meant for wood?
January 6, 2012 at 12:45 pm
I know there’s some disagreement on whether it’s better to refinish or restore antiques or leave them be, but if you’re going to do something to them, do it properly!
January 6, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Probably in her makeup kit.
January 6, 2012 at 12:44 pm
First the violin, now this. Can’t wait for the Harold and Maude-esque tranformation of the Rolls Royce Phantom II into a Burning Man art car.
January 6, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Oh I nearly cried looking at that lovely furniture ruined. How sad. What fuckwits.
January 6, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Dear god, don’t let her start on mid century modern furniture. I still need pieces for my house.
January 9, 2012 at 8:38 am
We can take comfort in the fact that it’s too fashionable and expensive. OMG, except maybe in New Jersey…. eeeek!!!!!!!!
January 6, 2012 at 12:47 pm
I almost vomited. I’m more distressed than those paint jobs.
The sideboard and vanity were just fine, if needing a bit of care. What was done to them is abominable.
January 6, 2012 at 12:47 pm
My husband is a custom furniture designer who also does restoration. This is what he looked like when I showed him this post:
January 6, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Hip fella – according to Etsy, feathers in the hair are TRENDY!
January 6, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Is that a Steampunk Native American?
January 6, 2012 at 5:44 pm
That’s the famous Crying Indian from the 1970s don’t litter ad campaign.
January 6, 2012 at 1:23 pm
I wouldn’t have showed it to him at all (too cruel) unless he reads Regretsy, and would have stumbled across it unprepared.
January 6, 2012 at 1:23 pm
shown (damn auto-correct)
January 6, 2012 at 12:47 pm
I am sick to death of shabby chic. They’re ruining beautiful antique pieces with their white paint and crackle finishes.
I was at the flea market a while back, the most beautiful mid-century Danish modern endtables I had ever seen…painted turquoise over black, with crackle finish and sanded edges. I cried.
January 9, 2012 at 8:39 am
Don’t tell us that, you cruel woman!
January 6, 2012 at 12:49 pm
I’m a candy punk kind of chick, so that last stripey one rocks my neon green, hot pink, and cyan socks. *puts on scorn resistant helmet* HOWEVER, was it really too much to ask to just go buy some 2-bit hunk of wood with metal fixings from IKEA? :\
January 6, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Y’know, I must say, the candy-striper look IS cute. But not for that piece. Do it with a cheapo knockoff.
January 6, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Okay, I realize that not all older furniture is valuable and that a lot of these were pretty beaten up in the first place but . . . I still think that there is a special little place in Hell for people who “refashion” vintage stuff. Refashioning is just a trendy euphemism for destruction. I almost injured a friend recently for “refashioning” a cotton 1950′s housedress. Everyday clothing doesn’t get preserved: It gets worn out and thrown away. It’s almost harder to find good examples of it than of haute couture because of that. If you want to cut up a dress or some furniture, go to Wal-Mart or IKEA and start with something that didn’t have a long life ahead of it in the first place.
I have a nightstand that just about matches th3 1940′s Art Deco waterfall front half-chest that got turned into a bathroom sink counter. Except that I cleaned it up and reglued it instead of painting in and ruining whatever finish it had for good.
January 6, 2012 at 12:49 pm
They have nauseating platitudes printed on coffee mugs too, to “inspire you.”
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/category_108/TO-INSPIRE-YOU.htm
The damask print and roses on the website are inspiring me to paint my laptop screen black
January 7, 2012 at 8:48 am
Well, from what I saw, at least their platitudes (in their various forms) have correct grammar and spelling. More than I expected.
January 6, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
January 6, 2012 at 8:03 pm
I bet an Ikea dresser, with maybe some wood onlays you can buy out there and glue to plain furniture to dress it up a bit before you paint it hot pink would look just as adorable in your 2-year old daughter’s room.
January 6, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Oh my god.
This is so awful that it falls somewhere between Nutella-shortage and raping kittens on the Horribleometer.
January 6, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Nutella-shortage? Oh god, don’t even joke about something like that!
January 6, 2012 at 2:40 pm
She is raping furniture. Please someone, save the innocents!
January 6, 2012 at 12:50 pm
These travesties call for a new term: stabby chic.
January 6, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Ah, spumler, you beat me to it! That’ll teach me to read all comments before posting (even if there are almost 200!).
January 6, 2012 at 12:51 pm
I’m a designer. But this really sucks. I work for an import company in the home accessory industry Shabby chic and vintage are a HUGE trend right now. I don’t really understand why it is so popular but it is. However, there are more than enough factories willing to produce new pieces that can be made to look old. Please NJ leave the antiques to the rest of us. Plus, these are not even that well done.
January 9, 2012 at 6:05 am
Reeds and seashells and pig tails.
January 6, 2012 at 12:52 pm
“Not Too Shabby New Jersey: Where Antique Furniture Goes To Die!”
January 6, 2012 at 2:43 pm
these didn’t die, they got turned into zombies.
zombie furniture…the next big thing.
January 6, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Sofas and end tables shambling down the the street….”Woooooood Graaaaaaaaain. Woooooooood Graaaaaain.”
And then they demolish your unpainted wood furniture.
January 6, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Where Antique Furniture Goes To Wish It Could Die.
January 6, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Ohhhhh, I feel sick.
The sideboard on top is a Deco piece . . . my great-grandparents had a dresser and desk set JUST like that, which my sister and I inherited (she has both pieces now). And they’re beautiful, even with the little scratches and dings you get over time. How anyone could DARE paint something like that just makes me ill. With all the ugly Goodwill pieces just begging to be painted over, they have to choose something like this . . .
January 15, 2012 at 12:20 pm
I agree. I have a bedroom set that looks just like this– waterfall front, beautiful veneer, etc.– but it’s genuine 1920s deco stuff with the original silver-backed mirror and celluloid handles and decorations. It’s got a few dings and scratches and some tiny bits missing, but my mom found it at an antique store for $400 (the whole set, mind you!) and bought it on the spot. She couldn’t believe that anyone would try to get rid of it all for such a crazy low price, and God bless her, she gave it to me. (Called my dad and made him drive 400 miles to get it home, too! He built all our furniture and knows great wood when he sees it.)
I’m trying to restrain myself from hating these people for wrecking this stuff, but it might not be working. God give me strength!
January 6, 2012 at 12:59 pm
This was how they made Jimmy Hoffa disappear. He’s in somebody’s house, painted Hot Pink and topped in mosaic tiles.
January 6, 2012 at 1:25 pm
That’s probably him wearing that lampshade.
January 6, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Comment of the Day candidate!
January 6, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Oh, oh god. They turned this
Into this.
I want to cry. That is so horrible. The intricacy of the carving, I can’t imagine what it would take a REAL restoration expert to get all that shitty white paint off. STOP PAINTING SHIT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!
Fucking new jersey. I live in Philly and spend a lot of time surrounded by people from jersey. I know you’re “not all like that” but damn, too many are. I feel for you, I do.
January 6, 2012 at 6:07 pm
Why the hell does EVERYTHING need to be “distressed?” That’s how I feel when I look at it!
January 6, 2012 at 1:01 pm
My ex-inlaws have a similar lack of respect for old wood.
When they took an antique set of cherry furniture in to have it stripped and refinished in a lighter oak stain just because the original stain was “too dark,” I wanted to cry.
We inherited some other pieces, and they offered to have them refinished too, but I said no. At least I saved those!
They’re also the ones who suggested that we install LAMINATE wood flooring over the top of our 100-year-old house’s original pine floorboards because the pine was gouged in a couple of places (overall pretty good, though!). ARE YOU INSANE?!?
Some people just don’t get it, I guess.
January 6, 2012 at 1:46 pm
We may have the same in-laws. My husband’s paternal grandfather did some tile work for a client around 1905. The client ran out of money while building his house, and couldn’t pay, so he gave my grandfather-in-law a gorgeous old (even then) foot-pedalled organ. My mother-in-law decided to cut a hole in the bellows so she could hook up a vacuum cleaner hose, because pumping was too much work. Then she stopped playing and decided the piece was useless (insert obligatory joke about how she never really liked her husband’s organ that much), and was planning to rip out the (ivory) keyboard (and all the stops) and have a planter box built to go in that space. We told her that it took up too much space to be a good planter, and we’d buy her a nice planter box. We still had to BUY the antique piece from her, and we don’t have the money to repair the bellows yet, but we saved it. She had the cornflower blue paint all picked out.
January 6, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Holy shit! Some people are living examples of This Is why We Can’t Have Nice Things. At least your husband didn’t inherit her taste.
January 6, 2012 at 6:10 pm
My family had a pale/mint green piano. No idea why it was painted that color. Unfortunately, it was destroyed when my mom’s (now) ex-husband intentionally burned the house down…
January 6, 2012 at 1:03 pm
This ranks up with the hobo couple ripping up quilts for shits and giggles.
January 6, 2012 at 2:45 pm
I thought this is where they bought their furniture.
January 6, 2012 at 1:05 pm
My grandmother’s vanity looks a lot like this one:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/71187400/vintage-waterfall-vanity-in-green
Except, you know, it hasn’t been destroyed by painting it green.
January 6, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Jesus Christ: I could have had the whole damned bedroom set if these morons hadn’t beaten me to it. I’m glad I rescued my nightstand when I did!
January 6, 2012 at 3:22 pm
I had that vanity with the mirror in high school. We bought it at a garage sale, my mom cleaned it up, and it’s in the attic in their house now. Never would I do that to something so pretty.
January 6, 2012 at 1:06 pm
They should fire Sadie Olive (http://design.sadieolive.com/) for that amateur website.
Ooh, maybe throwing some paint on it will help…
January 6, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Oh my god! I am astounded at their stupidity.
I had to go and look at their site and it’s MADDENING!
They took a perfectly beautiful china cabinet with gorgeous doors that had a really well done doors…and DESTROYED it by
a. removing the doors that made the piece utterly fantastic
and
b. PAINTING IT WHITE!!!
Why are they painting all of this gorgeous old wood?
I can’t even imagine destroying beautiful pieces like this!
January 6, 2012 at 1:11 pm
well clearly that should have been
They took a perfectly beautiful china cabinet that had really well done doors…
but hey…I’m drinking already. What do you want from me?
January 6, 2012 at 1:13 pm
It frightens me that someone like this might buy my old house (can’t afford to keep it after the divorce, sadly).
It’s a 1910 Dutch Colonial Revival, and it has all-original pine wood flooring, original windows (wavy glass, with sash weights and everything), original plaster walls that haven’t been papered over, and original solid wood doors and moulding that have not been touched. Oh, and an amazing old oak fireplace surround with an antique mirror.
I love that house. I loved feeling like I was part of something special that the other homeowners and I shared – a desire to keep it in its original state as much as possible. I just hope that the next owner does the same. I really, really hope so, because I can’t bear the thought of someone coming in there with a bunch of paint and wallpaper and ripping out all that lovely old glass . . .
January 6, 2012 at 2:42 pm
I had to stop watching “This Old House” because of the more-money-than-taste factor. The guys on there were so cute, and I’m still fascinated by how things are built, but I couldn’t watch them hack up and obliterate any more old houses.
January 6, 2012 at 7:35 pm
After painting all the wood work they’ll rip out the kitchen and put in granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. They’ll also take down walls for an open floor plan turning the living spaces into a bowling-alley like space. Painted neutral colors, of course. Dear god in heaven I hate HGTV remodels.
SAVE THE PINK BATHROOMS!!!!!
January 6, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Maybe things are a little different over the pond, but in the UK there is tons of this sort of old furniture kicking about, and nobody wants it.
I’m not a regular at auctions or anything, but whenever I go there are always bits of furniture similar to this, and in decent condition, and they just can’t give then away. I’ve personally had to scrap pieces because I don’t have space for them, and nobody else wants them.
Having said that, I still think they look shite after the “makeover”!
January 6, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Definitely different here.}:P We don’t have near as much history as you do, so pieces like some of these tend to get handed down generation after generation.
January 6, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Yeah, this type of furniture is _dirt_ cheap. I bought a lovely solid mahogany desk/table for £2, a dressing table similar to the one here for the same and a Flame mahogany chest for £6 on ebay.
The same auctions couldn’t sell teak wardrobes, I would have bought all of them, but had no way to get them home.
I think a lot of this was 40′s & 50′s repro and not particularly ‘beautiful’, nor valuable. I feel the shabby look has been way overdone, but I don’t feel bad about doing *something* with these pieces. It’s probably better that buying some new Chipboard/MDF abortion.
On the other hand if someone painted my parents 18ft oak dining table, I would gouge out their eyes with a spoon. Slowly.
January 6, 2012 at 2:52 pm
No loss. I don’t think their eyes were doing them much good anyway.
January 6, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Yeah, that’s what I was wondering reading through all the emotion here… If there’s a piece of furniture nobody actually wants as is, and certainly nobody is standing in line to refinish it lovingly, and it’s on the curb, and someone can use it in their home provided it’s painted over – where’s the harm? What this Jersey store is doing is certainly tasteless, vulgar, and in bad quality (and I HATE distressed cream paint), and if they’re using any actual rare antiques, that’s a pity, but generally speaking, I don’t see the great crime against culture in painting over wood.
January 7, 2012 at 5:12 am
Downvotes totally make me feel like a sexy rebel.
January 6, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Where did you find those things!? Where I am (Sussex) furniture like that is still expensive. When I did up my bedroom it took ages to find nice furniture that didn’t cost a bomb.
These ‘restorers’ need to give up what they’re doing and become chartered accountants. I feel sick looking at what they’ve done. :’( Why oh why do they keep taking the original handles off too?
January 7, 2012 at 3:05 am
I’m in Herefordshire. The table and dressing table were from an Auction house in Cheltenham.
January 7, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Thanks.
January 9, 2012 at 8:47 am
They take the original handles off because they don’t have any glamorous rhinestones in them of course! What a silly question!
January 6, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Beat up waterfall dressers tend to be a dime a dozen around here. I don’t know if they would be any nicer painted.
I like the style of them but it seems they were cheaply veneered.
And hot pink is never my style.
January 6, 2012 at 1:16 pm
I’ll admit, my first thought upon seeing those ‘lampshades’ was ‘What the hell?!’
The rest just makes me weep.
January 6, 2012 at 2:56 pm
If this woman is Caucasian can you imagine what those green stocking looked like on her legs?? Hurl!!
January 6, 2012 at 3:56 pm
Lady, your legs look moldy!
January 6, 2012 at 1:18 pm
I’m crying here. I love wood, I love old stuff and I never, ever would torture such beautiful pieces with paint like this. Each and every one of them deserves to be fully restored to former glory instead of being ridiculed.
January 6, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Reminds me of the time I killed not one but TWO belt sanders trying to remove the 17 coats matte black enamel-based housepaint the previous owners of my house applied to the kitchen cabinetry with what appears to have been either a paintbrush, or perhaps the collected leavings from someone’s hairbrush.
January 6, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Why does the pink vanity make me cry but the pink-striped server make me say, FABOO! Maybe I’ve said too much.
January 6, 2012 at 1:41 pm
The pink stripes aren’t all that bad, it’s just that they ruined a beautiful piece with them. It’d be one thing if the original were mass produced or built by them for the express purpose of stripes, but this is different and horrible somehow.
It’s kind of like, I dunno, if a guest shits in your toilet, that’s perfectly fine, because toilets are made to be shat in, but it’s another thing entirely if a guest shits on your priceless black-market original Rembrandt.
You know what I’m talking about?
January 6, 2012 at 1:56 pm
I doodly-doodly do understand. I always get it when someone lays it out in poop terms.
I love old wood furniture too. The beauty of wood is that it’s always there under a coat of obnoxious paint. It just takes longer to get it back.
January 6, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Sweet Jeebus, that “Ornate Server” on pg. 6 was stunning before! This cuntwoggle determined it too be “too dark and tired”, so she slapped a coat of pale yellow nasty on it which now “lets you see all the great detail”… I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
January 6, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Cuntwoggle. I am SO going to use that in a sentence, tomorrow. At work, if possible.
January 6, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Is it just me or does that lamp appear to be looking forlornly at the camera? 0_o
It reminds me of a reject from Pan’s Labyrinth and seems to be whispering “kill me”. Is it just me?
January 6, 2012 at 1:37 pm
It’s… it’s not just you.
Anymore, anyways.
January 6, 2012 at 1:24 pm
my husband has done work restoring antiques. When I saw this crap, I just had to show him… the fact that this person destroyed such beautiful furniture just KILLS us. How can someone be so ignorant?
January 6, 2012 at 2:52 pm
And how does she get her hands on those lovely pieces?
January 6, 2012 at 1:26 pm
You know, I bet there’s a pretty penny to be made in un-fixing what people like this “fix.”
January 6, 2012 at 1:29 pm
I’m guessing there is. Would be amusing to see a restoration shop open next door to the place that destroyed these antiques.
January 6, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Yes, but I don’t think that a restorer could take it. It would be like an animal rights activist working next door to an abattoir.
January 6, 2012 at 1:29 pm
O.M.G that site made me cry!
January 6, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Oh, someone please rescue this. Don’t let them paint it!! Noooooo.
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/item_1786/1930s-Dresser-with-3-Part-Mirror.htm
January 6, 2012 at 1:49 pm
“This is a beautiful piece, as is, if you like dark wood…”
WHAT DOES THIS PERSON HAVE AGAINST DARK WOOD???
Sorry, the rage makes me go all capslocky.
January 6, 2012 at 8:59 pm
OHGODOHGODOHGOD
If I was across the pond I’d rescue that no matter what the cost was. Please, someone buy it!
January 6, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Looking through that site, I occasionally saw a pair of photos that made me stop and think,
“Hey… they actually kind of improved this one. Maybe they’re not all that-”
And then I noticed that they had put the before picture on the right and the after picture on the left like the skanks they are. What’s up with that? Did they realize how badly they screwed up, and thought that they might be able to fool people by cleverly switching the photographs? Or were they too pickled in their own filth to notice?
January 6, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Antique Roadshow Host – “Wow, what we have here is a early eighteenth century Pennsylvanian chest. Look at the workmanship! In mint condition, this would be worth, at auction between $100,000 and $120,000. It would belong in a museum. It would be an American treasure.”
Lady – “Oh, my god. Oh, my god.”
ARH – “However, before you get too excited, there are some condition issues here. There is a chip on this corner. This hing has been replaced. Those would lower the price to $60~80,000…. Oh yeah, someone painted it a God-awful pink and white candy strip. That lowers the value to about $15.”
Lady – “$15,000?”
ARH – “No. $15. Also, for ruining such a fine piece of American craftsmanship. The Keno twins here are going to beat you to within inches of death with these lovely early twenty-first century aluminum bats.”
January 6, 2012 at 3:28 pm
I would pay to see the Keno twins in a fight with these people.
January 6, 2012 at 3:59 pm
How about classic wood Louisville Sluggers?
January 6, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Extreme cruelty to antiques. There should be a law against it.
January 6, 2012 at 2:02 pm
odd that she’s got sales in her shop dating back a while yet no feedback?
January 6, 2012 at 2:07 pm
also found another antiques murderer in her faves – http://www.etsy.com/shop/StiltskinStudios?ref=seller_info
January 6, 2012 at 6:14 pm
If they didn’t half-ass the paint job, I’d actually like some of these pieces. At least the colors aren’t as gaudy.
January 6, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Shabby. But not TOO shabby.
I sort of understand why my husband refuses to move out of this state. I mean his parents and kids and grandkids are all here, and supposedly it’s better than Scranton.
But I’m not completely convinced of that.
I am tired of having to apologize for living in the same state as these… people.
January 6, 2012 at 2:15 pm
Look at how thick and gummy the paint looks, too. Nice one, Tack Master. These pieces would honestly look better encrusted with shit.
January 6, 2012 at 2:27 pm
This reminds me of an artist I once saw on some decor show (some famous gay guy’s show whose name escapes me but I know he also designs home decor fabrics, damn I’m hopeful). This batshit insane woman took these beautiful antique chairs and perfectly restored them…except half the chair was turned into a 3rd grade art project that looked like a rainbow threw up on it. So half the chair was restored to it’s former glory only to have the other side look like rainbow vomit. We’re talking neon colors, feathers, bead trims, faux fur in garish colors….And this was pre-Etsy.
January 6, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Give me 5 minutes alone with her and I’ll “transform” her into a paint-covered corpse.
January 6, 2012 at 2:48 pm
oh my. It’s just as easy to work on restoring it.
January 6, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Does she sell lawn flamingoes to go with that pink and white striped monstrosity?
January 6, 2012 at 3:18 pm
What do you think she ground up to get that color?
January 6, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Oh god…. it hurts…
Ok everyone send them an email asking them to please stop ruining lovely antique furniture. One two three Go!
January 6, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Some of that furniture matches my own dresser which was a cheap mass produced piece made in the 1930′s. That vanity table is the one that goes with my dresser, so I can speak with authority when I say that it is not a priceless antique – but I wouldn’t even paint a shitty Ikea cabinet that color.
January 6, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Shitting on good furniture and New Jersey’s rap. Good one.
January 6, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I like the concept of taking a piece of shitty beyond fixing furniture and turning it into sink with storage underneath. But that sidetable did not deserve that fate! If you are going to do such a thing use 1980′s piece of crap.
January 6, 2012 at 3:32 pm
this makes me so fucking sad.
January 6, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Some of these just hurt my soul
January 6, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Actually, I rather like the mosaic topped dresser. Except that the dark drawers don’t match. I’d have done it all white.
I probably shouldn’t admit that here should I?
January 6, 2012 at 4:03 pm
You probably shouldn’t. Still, everyone’s free to have their own opinions and all, and I guess I’m okay with that.
As long as you don’t actually put those opinions into action, that is.
Anyway, thinking about it, I’m not sure there is a way to fuck that poor dresser up further, so go ahead. At least then it’ll match.
January 6, 2012 at 3:55 pm
As someone who spent a year searching for a turn of the century home where the original woodwork had NOT been painted…this makes me ill. This paint-everything-in-clown-vomit method of furniture “restoration” HAS TO STOP. I first saw it going on at an upscale “flea market” (hipster emporium) in Oklahoma City. The most (formerly) gorgeous pieces had been painted turquoise, bedazzled, decoupaged with Lou Reed’s portrait, and all sorts of other atrocious shit. And the mark up! RIDICULOUS.
I ended up buying a 1907 Victorian cottage in the ghetto (super cheap) because all of the original awesomeness was intact and unpainted. Glad these asshats didn’t get a hold of it…
January 6, 2012 at 7:05 pm
I have a 1915 Arts & Crafts house with unpainted original varnish woodwork. I was going to strip and restore, but my brother talked me out of it. He tried that in *his* early 20th century house, and he could never get the varnish out of the molding crevasses. And considering I have a full time job and a family, and can afford to hire a team of professionals to do it for me, I decided to leave it alone.
January 6, 2012 at 4:02 pm
As my great-grandmother used to say, “Some people have all their taste in their mouths.”
January 25, 2012 at 3:36 pm
I always say, “Some people have all their taste in their thumb and the thumb up their ass.”
January 6, 2012 at 4:15 pm
NEVER. NEVER. NEVER. Put white paint on antique furniture!!!!! I want to kill them, draw and quarter them, and kill them again! GRARRRR!!
January 6, 2012 at 4:44 pm
Oh man, this is just horrible. Although I do have an antique metal headboard that we found in the bush. I painted it blue, but it was originally painted white (the paint was all peeling off anyway). A nice coat of dark blue made it look awesome against a tan coloured wall.
Also I love old wooden furniture, painting it is a big no no.
January 6, 2012 at 4:57 pm
How much White and Pink house paint can one person own? Seriously! Do they back up a fucking tanker to her house and pump it into some holding tank?
As HUGE a crime it is to destroy great natural wood and inlays, its even worse not to do it well. Has this woman ever heard of PRIMER?
January 6, 2012 at 5:13 pm
I feel the same sort of sick as when I looked at the destroyed violin. It reminds me of a friend’s grandmother; she had a beautiful old vintage BMW, but she decided that she was sick of the colour, so she pulled out a dodgy old tin of white house paint that she had in the shed, and tried her hand at slapping it on the car with a roller. The results weren’t great.
January 6, 2012 at 5:30 pm
This one is terrifying –
“Crazy Chair” Before- http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/images/large/crazychair.jpg
After- http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/images/large/jackieschair002450x600.jpg
It was beautiful before …
January 6, 2012 at 6:18 pm
EEK! That’s DISGUSTING!
I would have stripped & stained the wood, re-painted the gold accents or stained them a darker color, replaced the gold rick-rack with brass nail heads, and replaced the fabric with something in a nice deep red color. Their “refinish” looks like a drag queen threw up on it.
January 6, 2012 at 6:19 pm
Fringe AND pink??? *shudders*
January 6, 2012 at 7:35 pm
I’m not a big fan of the before, mostly because the upholstery is tacky enough that it looked like she’d already gotten ahold of it. Have to admit, though, the after is jaw-droppingly impressive. The chair was already white, but not all of it, so thank god she took care of that. Then the fuzzy trim – wow. We all thought she was just being lazy and stupid, but it looks like she might actually have a gift for ruining things.
January 6, 2012 at 5:40 pm
I’ve always since I was a teen, felt it was a sin to paint over wood. Now that I’m married to a carpenter, that’s even more true. Stain yes. Paint NO! Why cover up the lovely natural grain of wood??
My only exception would be oak. Just because I hate it.
January 6, 2012 at 5:42 pm
I meant to add to that that the headboard on the website made my heart stop for a second.
January 6, 2012 at 7:13 pm
I was going to object, because I love oak, but then I realized that I love oak trees, and feel relatively ambivalent about oak wood. Sorry, these things get confused for me. My father was a carpenter and my mother was an arborist, and I suppose this is what happens.
January 6, 2012 at 7:30 pm
I only hate oak because my mom’s kitchen was oak, and then the first house my hubby and I bought had oak cabinets and “oak” laminate flooring. I got really tired of looking at oak.
I’m sure oak trees are lovely I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. We don’t have them in AK.
January 6, 2012 at 5:45 pm
The thing that makes this less awful than the violin, for me, is that as awful as it is paint can be stripped. Someone who knew what they were doing could rescue them and restore them at least to a condition that doesn’t cause spontaneous eye bleeding.
The violin can’t be restored to anything but firewood.
January 6, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Darn sticky comma button makes me look like I never studied grammar.
January 6, 2012 at 7:26 pm
I don’t know. I mean, they can be restored, but only if anyone thinks they’re worth restoring. I mean, if you saw those things, would you even bother getting out the stripper, or just assume that they’re worthless pieces of crap under it, bought factory fresh for the express purpose of painting horrific colors? Me, if I saw one of those before I saw this post, I would never for a moment think that someone had covered a gorgeous antique in paint, because it just doesn’t make sense.
Kind of like the Trunchbull in Matilda, I guess. Always go whole hog, and no one will believe you. Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it.
January 6, 2012 at 7:33 pm
A true lover of old furniture would recognize the treasure under the ugly face. I guess it’s that they’re not completely destroyed. They could conceivably be saved. They haven’t been removed from the world like the violin.
January 6, 2012 at 6:12 pm
Just… tears. This is awful. I grew up with a family that took me to look in antique stores for fun; my grandmother’s house is decorated completely with antiques. Not one of those pieces is hot pink >.<
January 6, 2012 at 6:15 pm
Is this an example of furniture karma? Were these pieces particularly bad and this is their punishment? I know everyone’s taste is different, but the paint jobs aren’t even well done! I restore and re-purpose furniture and I paint better than that!
January 6, 2012 at 6:33 pm
That was painful… I think I’d have rather seen them destroyed for Paypal than defaced like that.
January 6, 2012 at 6:46 pm
I’ve got an old-fashioned buffet that probably dates back to the turn of the century. It belonged to my Great Grandmother, and has been passed down through the years. I kind’ve got it by default after my mom died because it’s so big and heavy, the cost of shipping it to my sister in California would be prohibitive.
And it’s gorgeous-heavy carved wood, and scrolled legs. It’s missing a few drawer pulls, but it’s the sentimental value that makes it worth it to me.
The idea of some idiot painting it to look like a clown car and replacing what’s left of the original hardware makes me want to strangle the person responsible for these desicrations.
January 6, 2012 at 7:21 pm
There is a store in Denver on Broadway – a tiny store kind of hidden away – that specializes in antique fixtures. It is possible they could have pieces that match yours so you could replace the missing ones.
January 6, 2012 at 6:58 pm
I like the look of the thing with the mosaic on it, they just should have done it to some crappy new dresser from Wal-mart instead of that nice old thing. The one with the stripes is God awful. The first one was beautiful just the way it was. whoever painted it pure pink should be shot in the face.
January 6, 2012 at 9:38 pm
The mosaic isn’t bad. But yes, they could have gotten something cheap from a big-box store. Hell, they could buy a ton of them and paint them.
January 6, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
January 6, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Beautiful hardwood aside, can’t someone PLEASE explain to these poor idiots that “loving restoration” and “slapping a coat of country white on it” are nowhere near the same thing?
January 6, 2012 at 7:12 pm
How does a crappy paint job count as a restoration in any universe? Some of the paint jobs are funky… like the pink and white stripes, but frig, save that for some garbage from IKEA. Same with the one that the mosaic was done on. The mosaic is really quite nice, and very well done (I’m going to assume these people did it themselves. Benefit of the doubt and all that.) But it really does destroy what is otherwise a nice antique which looked perfectly restorable.
January 6, 2012 at 9:37 pm
Restoration means “making it look like it used to.” This isn’t a furniture restoration shop. It’s a furniture-painting shop. By the way, one of those takes skill, time, and craftmanship. The other doesn’t. Guess which is which.
January 6, 2012 at 7:17 pm
All I have to say is this post is fucking killing me – beautiful furniture that could have easily been restored, but instead it was fucked over.
My hand itches for a can of paint stripper and some linseed oil.
January 6, 2012 at 7:31 pm
OK, so I’m with you guys on the furniture comments. I think those idiots should be beaten senseless with a paintbrush & have a big pink “A”(for asshole) painted on their foreheads.
However, has anyone besides me wondered what the lampshades smell like? Especially when they warm up from a light bulb? Eau de granny panties & support hose with a little Shalimar mixed in? Ewwwwww………
January 6, 2012 at 9:27 pm
It’s a shame they’re so misguided, because there are some cute ideas here (that do not include knee hi’s and lampshades). These treatments are what you do with crappy, cheap furniture you find in a Storage Wars locker…NOT quality furniture with beautiful details.
The mosaic, especially, is really beautiful. Just 100% wrongly used.
January 6, 2012 at 9:28 pm
My mom has a nightstand very similar in style to that first dresser. It’s one of the few things in the family you could call ‘antique’ or an ‘heirloom’. It is in noticeable need of restoration in a couple of places where the veneer is chipped, yet I would kill anyone who came near it with paint (whether with paint they approach it, or they approach it and I kill them with their paint. either way.) I’m frankly surprised it’s gone unpainted for this long, but damn it, it’s going to stay that way.
January 6, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Oh Jeebus-please-us, they have an “airmoire” on their site.
January 6, 2012 at 9:35 pm
This crapfest makes me a sad panda indeed. I love wood furniture. I’d never buy anything painted. Wood is attractive, warm, and homey… Paint is what you do to furniture that’s beyond poor quality. Particle board and stuff.
Not Too Shabby: We Take Beautiful Antique Furniture and Ruin It.
January 6, 2012 at 9:45 pm
Not pictured: duck lips, spray tan, shoes.
January 6, 2012 at 9:51 pm
While I know very little about restoration, I truly appreciate vintage and antique things. This just flat out makes me angry. For the love of all that holy . . . WHY?!I will buy a plane ticket to New Jersey just so I can slash the tires of the one responsible for this.
January 6, 2012 at 10:20 pm
Shot. These people must be shot. Or pilloried in public, where the general populace can adorn them properly.
January 6, 2012 at 10:31 pm
I think this is at least as depressing as the violin.
January 6, 2012 at 10:58 pm
My god, woman! What did antique furniture ever do to you??? Why would anyone in their right mind do something like this to cheap furniture, let alone antique furniture?
I can only assume nobody has taken Liz aside and explained that she is destroying art and throwing away lots of money at the same time. Unless…I shudder to think that there is some ghastly, evil market out there for this kind of obnoxious train wreck. It boggles the mind.
January 6, 2012 at 11:11 pm
Some of the stuff isn’t horrible, I kinda like the mosaic, and the first armoire on their site would work well in my bathroom and is the type of vanity I’m looking for, sadly the pieces at habitat for humanity were beyond saving.
The thing is though it makes me sick to my stomach to see these beautiful pieces destroyed beyond repair by them. Most of these pieces were already in decent shape, which is rare and it makes me furious to see the tacky shit they’ve done with them! Especially the ones painted in ridiculous hues of pink and green it’s unnecessary. I mean it’s one thing if the piece is a POS and in the position that restoring it would be a fortune or near impossible and making your own piece is more worthwhile. These are horrible though!
January 6, 2012 at 11:16 pm
My family restores furniture. In fact, my house is filled with restored furniture, done lovingly and carefully, as to bring out the natural, original beauty of the pieces. It’s what makes my home, “home.” I love each one, as some of the people who did the restorations are now gone. One of them passed within the last month.
Having said that, I just screamed, “WHAT THE FUCK!?!?”
I don’t know what else to say to the carnage in the pictures. Damn shame…
January 6, 2012 at 11:53 pm
I took theater in university, and spent one semester working as a props assistant. My main job was restoring and refurbishing antique furniture – essentially, taking crap like these “transformations” that we could get dirt cheap because they were ugly as sin and making it pretty again. I wonder if she knows that for every antique she ruins with hot pink paint, there’s some poor theater student out there who will eventually be scrubbing it off with a toothbrush trying not to ruin the wood underneath, getting callouses and blisters, and likely wishing they could punch the person who screwed up that furniture. I will never understand why people hate the color of wood.
January 7, 2012 at 1:31 am
I like some of the pieces, but it’s definitely NOT okay that they’ve used antiques.
January 7, 2012 at 1:45 am
Ah crap!
Stuff like this gives me nightmares. I can sort of (but not entirely) accept people that “re-store” mass produced roccoco-style furniture from the 40′s and 50′s, but these look like actual antiques. In my country I’ve seen a lot of re-makes of table-top drawer mirrors (I can’t find the name for them right now) from the 1880′s spraypainted into neon colors. I almost killed one of my friends when she wanted to do the same with one that she got from her great grandmother.
January 7, 2012 at 2:33 am
That pink and white server makes me think of these:
http://www.primaqualityfoods.com/Assets/Prima/User/40-PINK-N-WHITES-16PK.jpg
January 7, 2012 at 4:34 am
I was looking at the website to see some of the other stuff and I was starting to think that actually not all of the stuff she did was that bad… then I realized she kept switching which side “before” was on
January 7, 2012 at 6:41 am
Wow… and not in a good way. Antique furniture is not my aesthetic, but seeing this really hurt my heart.
January 7, 2012 at 8:20 am
Oooo… I know someone who would love THIS piece.
January 7, 2012 at 9:43 am
*ROFL* “Airmoire”
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/item_1268/Airmoire-Before.htm
January 7, 2012 at 11:20 am
The Husbeast looked over at the first pre-transformation picture and got all excited to see it lovingly restored. Before I scrolled down, I told him to look away it wasn’t going to be what he expected, this is Regretsy.
He looked anyway and is still twitching 15 minutes later.
Antiques or not, it’s a travesty to take such beautiful pieces and turn them in to craptastic garage sale fodder for the local asylum. Gag a maggot!
January 7, 2012 at 11:21 am
Did anyone notice that the shop’s facebook page has removed all of the critical comments about the “transformations” and blocked any new wall posts? The power of Regretsy
January 7, 2012 at 1:41 pm
I must admit I kinda liked the striped one, but not done to an antique. The original white paint wasn’t great to begin with, though. It looked like one of her “After” pictures.
But the sideboard… *takes out furniture equivalent of a skull* Alas, poor sideboard… I knew it, Regretsians: a furnishing of infinite beauty, of most excellent detail: it hath borne my various knickknacks in its drawers a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!
January 7, 2012 at 1:51 pm
http://www.etsy.com/listing/87146974/chartreuse-jacobean-chair
For the love of all that is holy, tell me that chair was not actually from the Jacobean era (1603–1625). Tell me they were referring to the style!
January 7, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Did you see this in the listing?
“About this item
Vintage Handmade by nottooshabbynj in the 1940s”
WTF????
January 7, 2012 at 5:56 pm
My God! I wanted to barf all over my computer screen when I saw how she mangled and defaced all those lovely wood pieces! This is a woman who has huffed too many cans of rustoleum and was forced to sleep on a priceless antique bed with an inlaid headboard when she really wanted a pink Barbie Corvette bed… Obviously a soul-mate for Snookie (if Snookie had a soul…)
January 7, 2012 at 6:29 pm
people actually like her stuff too!
http://www.nottooshabbynj.com/guestbook.htm?page=1
January 7, 2012 at 7:23 pm
So, I don’t think any of these pieces look particularly -bad- (except for the lampshade, which looks like the bastard child of my grandma’s wedding dress (which was beautiful) and cat vomit (which is not), and the hot pink thing because I hate hot pink).
But why would you do something like this to something that’s utterly irreplaceable, gorgeous as-is, and has historical value? It would be like digging up the perfectly in-tact skeleton of a rarely found dinosaur, and then breaking half the bones to sell to people who design horror movie sets, and grinding the other half into powder to sell as headache medicine.
January 7, 2012 at 7:24 pm
I’m originally from New Jersey. I moved to Germany because I thought things were better over here. Yeah…they’re not.
January 7, 2012 at 7:28 pm
This literally made me sick to my stomach. Like it would make the situation mildly better, maybe understandable, if they actually did a decent job with it. But there’s visible streaks and smears and runs in the paint. Just sell those gorgeous antiques to me instead, and use that to buy crappy ikea furniture to do this to.
But to be fair, not all antiques are worth something monetarily, but they should at least be respected, and I know that for every ten $50 broken down side boards, there’s at least one priceless gem in there somewhere. This is sick.
January 7, 2012 at 10:56 pm
I actually rather like the mosaic-topped piece. It is much more artistic than the rest of their stuff, and the base piece looked like it was in pretty rough shape to begin with.
This doesn’t justify some of the “up-cycling” they’ve done to perfectly serviceable pieces, though.
January 8, 2012 at 10:44 am
its safe to say this woman has an irrational hatred for natural wood furniture. sheesh! not everything needs a gallon of paint and crap glued to it.
January 8, 2012 at 12:29 pm
THANK YOU!!!
I seriously registered (even though I already follow) just to say thank you for this post.
I thought I might be the only one having a heart attack every time some new college girl got a-hold of an antique chest and decided to hot-glue her favorite glitter and rhinestones on it. UGH
January 8, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Is it just me or is her solution to every piece just to paint it white? I went to the site and it gets worse.
January 15, 2012 at 12:39 pm
The main idea of the “shabby chic” thing is to get uber-girly, like white furniture, extra-frilly lace, and antique rose printed-fabric. It’s supposed to be a throwback to when every little girl’s room looked like that; most little girls’ furniture was painted white for a long time, like my antique wrought-iron bed which I inherited painted white from my great-grandmother. (It’s had that look since my grandma slept in it as little girl in the 30s, so I left it that way.) If you really want to go with that aesthetic, I’d prefer people bought the “Shabby Chic” stuff from Target and left the real antiques alone.
January 8, 2012 at 2:21 pm
My bed and nightstand are from the 1920s and are dark wood that has been “antiqued” (translation: covered in this streaky salmon-and-tan paint combo). I haven’t stripped off the antiquing because I’m a fat lazy loser, but the person I bought it from suggested I do that, and then paint it white. Nooooo!!!!
January 8, 2012 at 2:22 pm
And I am also a loser at posting images. Let’s try this again:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7034/6662443367_448668a28b.jpg
January 8, 2012 at 4:43 pm
What was done to that waterfall dresser is a crime and an abomination. Why do people do shit like this?
January 8, 2012 at 5:41 pm
I have a booth at a vintage market that sells an insane amount of painted furniture. It’s old sturdy stuff painted and distressed. I vowed not to do this and my stuff sits while hundreds of pieces of painted furniture go out the door. People won’t buy the unpainted stuff, it sits.
I have a theory that people that like loud painted furniture let go of money easier than people that like traditional, solid, classic, natural wood. My compromise is to paint the totally jacked up or lesser quality stuff.
January 9, 2012 at 1:25 pm
I think the main thing is that dark furniture really makes the room seem smaller. I was lucky enough to find a (pale) solid ash dresser, inlaid beautifully, with matching 10ft extending table and 6 huge chairs for £100 on eBay, although it’s not antique we love it to pieces. We’d not paint it for the world.
But I can totally see why people go for the painted stuff. It is a style that I like, but I do have an internal struggle when I think of the craftsmanship that went into the original piece.
January 8, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Did you know it is possible to cry and vomit at the same time? I didn’t. Until now.
January 9, 2012 at 11:14 am
Looking at how they’ve turned that gorgeous inlaid sideboard into what looks like a really shabby cabinet with a new sink stuck in it just makes me want to slap somebody! Anyone who watches Antiques Roadshow is having fits along with me right now.
January 9, 2012 at 4:01 pm
If these were so priceless, don’t you think this person would have sold them as is/not been able to afford them in the first place? These items are worthless. They’re not rare at all. I personally think they are beautiful without the overdone shabby chic look, but if most other people thought so too, people like this seller wouldn’t be able to get their hands on them, and they wouldn’t bother with these “transformations”.
January 9, 2012 at 4:59 pm
If I got my hands on an expensive piece of furniture, I would sand it and varnish it. I restored an old vanity table from the 1930′s that was a mass produced piece of garbage. It had been owned by a little girl who scrawled her name in one of the drawers with a crayon. The veneer was chipped and stained with white out and sharpie ink. It was water damaged, too. Under the veneer there was only particle board. I left the drawer accent veneer, sanded away the rest, primed it and painted it clay orange and black. I love it and I am super proud of it. I spend hours on it and it was not a piece that could be restored or was worth it. I don’t see the harm in restoring a junk piece this way.
By the way, I also work in museums and I have for the past 5 years.
January 15, 2012 at 12:46 pm
I don’t think anyone here blames you for doing that to a junk piece that wasn’t made well to begin with. But the stuff on this person’s website was quite pretty without the paint and crap slapped onto it. I’m sure your new paint job on that vanity table was done a lot better than this, with the right kind of paint and proper technique.
January 9, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Good christ, regardless of what furniture she’s using her paint jobs are ATROCIOUS. My three-year old could do a better job.
How does someone fuck up “white”?
January 9, 2012 at 11:16 pm
Gah! Look at this paint job!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/84064898/silver-shimmer-sideboard-with-rhinestone
January 10, 2012 at 12:29 am
CRIMINAL!!!
January 10, 2012 at 12:31 am
Ya know…a crappy white paint job does not automatically qualify something as shabby chic. I’m sure it’s supposed to look distressed but it just looks like my 6 year old went crazy with the paint brush. And I know art. I live in Portland. You want art? Put a bird on it! That’s art!
January 12, 2012 at 2:07 pm
As someone whose parents restored antique furniture at auctions I know the work that goes into it and how beautiful the outcome. This made me fucking cry. These people should be publicly shunned and fined.
January 14, 2012 at 12:46 am
Agreed, my grandfather was an antique dealer, one of the best in the country, and he spent a great portion of his life restoring antique furniture and clocks to their original glory. He loved it so much he did it until he died. I remember him spending hours restoring antiques with suck skill and care and then I see this person throwing paint on absolute gems and it breaks my heart.
January 12, 2012 at 2:08 pm
I can’t stop looking. It makes me sick to my stomach to see those absolute jewels end up as shit. ARGHGHGHGHAFAFJKDSJA*(*&%%^#E%%&*()##!!!!!!
January 14, 2012 at 12:36 am
My grandfather devoted his life to lovingly and meticulously restoring antique furniture and ran his own antique store. I only hope these are reproduction articles of antique furniture and not genuine articles.. if not I’m sure if I listen carefully I’ll be able to hear my grandfather turning in his grave.
January 15, 2012 at 4:48 am
I showed my boyfriend this post so we could both share in the horror of it all. He liked the striped one and said it was awesome.
January 15, 2012 at 5:15 am
So yeah. I’m not letting him touch any furniture.
January 25, 2012 at 4:08 pm
I painted a mid century modern sideboard white (much like this: http://www.bydesignmodern.com/uploads/20091010061629sept09-281-138b.jpg ). I found it from a dumpster. The top had cracked badly and big parts of the veneer were chipped. It had probably been in pristine condition when thrown to the dumpster. I took the poor thing home found it impossible to restore. So I slapped on allot of filler and paint on it (luckily I was able to save the wood on the doors and drawers). Now it is white and looks like something from these trendy design shows… And every time I look at it I wish it would look like it should.
March 12, 2012 at 1:36 am
Oh HELL no!
March 26, 2012 at 7:05 pm
I would paint old furniture, and like some painted furniture….but please – not everyone in NJ thinks this is what restoring furniture is all about.