You just never know what you might find at a garage sale. I try to keep an open mind when I’m out hitting the sales. If something has a vintage appeal (i.e. it looks good and old) I often buy it even if I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. There is nothing more annoying that seeing a really cool project somewhere and then realizing I passed up the exact item needed at a garage sale two weeks ago.
Today’s project is definitely falls into the category of ‘what am I going to do with that?’, but I bought it anyway.
It’s an old newel post.
I paid $15 for it, which is a little high in garage sale money (which has way more value than typical money). I felt a little sad when I saw it there because I knew that the sellers had callously ripped it out of their older home and probably replaced it with something new and with far less character.
I knew it deserved better.
I brought it home and put it in my carriage house where it got buried behind 50 other potential projects. It sat and gathered dust for a couple of years. Ha! Maybe not really better treatment after all.
Then a few weeks ago I was surfing the blog world and I ended up on the Liz Marie Blog looking at her Cozy Farmhouse Winter Entryway (click that link to visit) and I spied a fabulous chippy black newel post. And she just had it leaning up against the wall. Duh! So easy, and so fab! And I knew just where I could find a newel post … sort of … somewhere out in the carriage house.
So I headed out there in sub-zero weather and started digging around. I unearthed it from a pile of cast off remnants and hauled it in the house.
I started by cleaning it up, then sanding it, then cleaning it again, then adding a layer of Homestead House’s Salad Bowl Finish because I wanted some more of that perfect chipping. This time I used a little more wax than I did on my original ‘perfect chipping experiment’ with the Buttermilk Cream mirror frame. I wanted a really beat up chippy look similar to the inspiration photo.
Here’s how it looked after the wax.
Then I painted it with just one quick coat of Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Typewriter. Once dry, I sanded to distress and found that I got plenty of chipping. I vacuumed up the dust and chips and then added a layer of Homestead House Black Wax.
And then in answer to the question ‘what am I going to do with that?’, I just leaned it in the corner of the piano room next to my Paris subway sign.
Easy peasy.
Chippy architectural salvage for $15, not bad right?
I have seen them used as coat hooks. Attaching a square base to the bottom and putting vintage coat hooks on the 4 sides of the Newell post
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Home Depot did a workshop before Christmas that was very similar to that, only they called it a ‘stocking holder’ for Christmas stockings. Either way, great idea!
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Perfect. I love tha black.
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Thanks Becky!
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Nice Linda such a beauty.
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Thanks Victoria!
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Love it. Looks great just displaying it like you did. I do the same thing. See something old and weathered that was probably a toss out and take it home knowing I’ll do something fabulous with it someday. Those projects often turn out to be the most fun and the most fabulous.
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So true Judy!
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That is just awesome!
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Thanks Paula!
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Where can I buy salad bowl finish?
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Good question! You can order it directly from Homestead House online here. They call it Beeswax Finish, and that is the same thing.
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