Being Torn

I had to stop in this evening because for the first time I find myself in a serious dilemma.

Not a serious dilemma as in a health issue, marriage difficulty, weather warning, or fire danger.  In fact ~ to most of you ~ my situation would not qualify as a dilemma at all.

But for me, being in the furniture-selling business, it really IS a dilemma. Because for the first time since I started painting furniture and selling it, I've come across a piece I REALLY want to keep.

People often ask if I'm torn when I finish painting a piece of furniture, whether I struggle with selling it or not.  Truthfully, this rarely happens.  I usually know upon an initial purchase if a piece is a seller or keeper ~ and most are sellers.  As a homeschool mom, any extra income is a tremendous blessing.  The fact that I love refinishing furniture and have been fortunate enough to find a small market for my pieces has been a wonderful blessing to our family.

But tonight, as I was staging my current dilemma to post it for sale, I couldn't stop thinking how much I loved this dresser.

In just this place. 

Oh for heaven's sake, let me show you some pictures already:

 

 

Are you feeling my pain here?

Here's what it looked like before:

For those who may not recognize the lines and hardware on this piece, it's one of the old military-issue dressers from decades ago, beautifully well-made.  Mom tells me they practically gave entire warehouses of these pieces away when they cleared furniture from the barracks back in the 1970's.

This dresser is unique for me because it's the first I've ever re-stained.  This was not the original plan.  When I started sanding the body to prep for paint, however, the finish started coming off completely. When I realized how quickly I was seeing bare wood, my plan shifted, so instead of painting the whole thing, I stained the body instead and just painted the drawers.  I only needed to use stripper on the top; everything else came off with sandpaper.

But now that I've hauled it upstairs, placed it in my foyer-that's-always-given-me-fits, and seen how perfect it looks there....well, the decorator me is picking all kinds of fits with the practical me.

Which reminds me of an observation my loving husband once made about me being kinda flashy, but not very practical. 

I'm sure he meant it in the very kindest way. 

Nevertheless, I think I may need to sleep on this one.

Good Night ~