Play It Again, Sam

A while back I wrote a post on our outing to the Habitat to Humanity store and the mid-century furniture piece we scored there for $10. Yes, $10. That’s right folks.

Now I have whined before about my inability to find these kind of deals. You know, when you read a post on someone else’s blog about the Eames chair they found at a garage sale for 50 cents? I am never that person. And nothing I find ever seems to be of much value (or use).

But this one spoke to me. I am a music buff and I have memories of my grandmother’s house and the built-in entertainment system of the time, with the fabric covered speakers, the built-in TV, radio and drop-arm record player and integrated record storage cabinet. (There was also a handy integrated cabinet with a bar, you know, just in case you couldn’t make it all the way to the kitchen for a drink after putting on your favorite record.)

I remember lying on the huge white shag covered floor pillow in the middle of the room and listening to Nat King Cole and Sarah Vaughn and Dean Martin (and Johnny Mathis and Chuck Mangione and Englebert Humperdink…ummm yeah) playing on that turntable. I was so excited when I figured out how to put the record on at the top, gently move the arm over to watch it drop and the needle move on its own. Magic. (And yes, you heard that right, a big white shag rug pillow in the middle of a room already covered in orange shag wall-to-wall carpet. As I look at the photos now, there are concerning number of them with my grandfather sprawled out on it. Could it have to do with the built-in bar, you think?)

So that is a lot of words to say that this record player center is pretty much nothing like the one in my grandparent’s house, but it’s mid-century and I really dig it. Before the purists get all in an uproar over our painting that lovely ‘tiger maple’, I have two words for you: veneer. Yeah. This wasn’t a fancy-schmancy solid wood piece of furniture that we painted without knowing better. It was veneer and we improved it I think.

Again, I say ‘we’ in the loosest sense of the word again. I mean mostly Brett and a little me and Maeve. Okay, mostly Brett and Maeve.  They began by sanding it. There were some areas where the veneer chipped and needed to be sanded down. It’s not perfect but it’s close. Then they began painting it. We chose the Benjamin Moore Bittersweet chocolate mainly because we had some leftover from the baseboards and because it’s the brown accent color we have started using throughout the house.

(To read the rest of this post and see how it turned out, please click here.)