Many moons ago, when we came back from our first stint overseas, we went to an auction. It was about the only thing there was to do in Kingsville, Texas on a Friday night, once football season was over. There we found this beautiful little draw-leaf table with barley twist legs. How I loved that table and its gorgeously grainy wood. It was in pretty bad shape at the time, and we hadn't even found a house yet, but we nabbed it for next to nothing, hauled it back to our apartment, and I discovered what a really nasty task it was to strip and refinish something by hand -- especially something with four barley twist legs.
Later, when we were living in Houston, and had fallen in love with another table with beautifully twisted legs, the little draw-leaf table and the hutch my father-in-law George built for us got relegated to the kitchen. Once we had moved to Midland, and butcher block tables and painted furniture had become all the rage, I had the "brilliant" idea of removing the original top from the draw-leaf, getting George to make a butcher block top for it, and painting the base dark Hunter Green. What can I say? I bore easily. But wait, there's more!
My own father was a home-builder in Dallas, and one of his favorite haunts was a place called Architectural Antiques (if I remember right), which was full of all kinds of interesting stuff they had found overseas or salvaged from demolished buildings. When I was young, he was always wagging home odd bits and pieces that he thought he might use in our own home, or in one of the houses he would build some day -- stuff like that piece of carved wood above (which is why we could never park any of our cars in the garage).
Just look at the detail, and that gorgeous grainy wood! Anyhoo, one time when the folks were in Midland visiting, Dad stumbled across that tabletop in my garage. He said if I was absolutely sure I would never want to use it to "restore my table to its original beauty", he had an idea as to how he might use it to make something nice for over my mantel. This is what I got for Christmas that year:
Gorgeous, isn't it? Unfortunately, it's been sitting around in pieces ever since we sold our house in Katy, because there was no room for it in the townhouse, and we haven't yet figured out the best spot for it here. I really think it's about time we rectified that situation, don't you?
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