So the Heywood Wakefield bedroom makeover is slowly but surely coming along.  The room is painted a lovely shade called Polar Gray, which is a soothing soft, icy bluish gray color in semi-gloss just perfect for peaceful slumber.  The bed will arrive Monday, March 4rth and I’m so excited I can’t stand it.  Anyhow, I have collected the rest of the Heywood Wakefield bedroom pieces from the Encore line in wheat finish, including a high boy chest of drawers in excellent original finish, a Mr. and Mrs. dresser in very poor condition, and two extremely hard to find nightstands that were recently refinished by the eBay seller from which I bought them.

The High Boy Chest of Drawers

So after ordering the bed, I scoured online auction sites within a tri-state area for upcoming sales of Heywood Wakefield furniture.  I found one up north that had the High Boy, a set of end tables, a Chair, and a full sized bed.  As well, I found an online auction with a Heywood Wakefield buffet and a table with four chairs.  The pick up point for this auction was only 30 minutes from the other day-of auction, so I placed my bids and crossed my fingers.  I ended up winning the buffet and dining table set and so Chaddy Daddy and I made a weekend trip out of the deal.  It was the first week in February 2013 and, of course, a snow storm had to hit….

The highways were so bad that only one lane was really navigable and we slid several times.  I began wondering if Heywood Wakefield furniture was worth dying over…and decided we should continue on.

So the first stop was to pick up the table, chairs, and buffet.  The buffet was in good condition, but the table and chairs were very poor and will need refinished.  Loading solid wood furniture in the sloshy wet snow was undeniably no fun….

So after the pickup we headed to the big city hotel and partied all night so we would be nice and exhausted for the next day’s auction…

So the next day, we got up bright and early, ate breakfast, and headed to the auction house…

The place was packed full of antiques, mostly glassware and guns, with a small assortment of antique furniture as well.  I spied the Heywood Wakefield grouping quickly, as it looked a bit out of place amongst all the old mahogany pieces.

So in the end, I won the High Boy by gritting my teeth and bidding up to my top dollar number.  Fortunately, my top dollar was $10 higher than my competitor’s and I won the piece by the skin of my teeth.  I also won the full sized bed at a surprisingly low price and had several people tell me later that I was lucky to have “stolen” it.  Sometimes the auction gods are in my favor…what can I say?

The Mr. & Mrs. Dresser

The Mr. & Mrs. Dresser was a Craigslist find I came across three hours away in northern, Ohio.  The seller said  the piece was structurally sound but the finish was in poor condition.  After haggling an extra $50 off the already low price, we agreed to meet in the parking lot of the seller’s local Wal-Mart, as is standard with most  Craigslist transactions.  Although the seller’s description of the piece was honest, I forgot to ask, and he did not disclose, that the piece came from a smoking household.  By the smell of the piece, this was a chain-smoking, non-filtered Camel Reds kind of household with no windows or ventilation system as well.  We put it in the bedroom and now fear we’ll contract black lung from the very odor it emanates if we don’t hurry up and refinish it soon!

The Night Stands

I bought the nightstands off eBay from a Pennsylvania seller by the handle name jwb213.  I almost lost them at the last minute, but won them by a hair because I put in my maximum bid early and beat out a last minute bidder.

So all that’s left is the bed, which will be here Monday!  I’ll be sure to post about it as soon as we get it up and functional.  Still have to refinish the Mr. & Mrs. Dresser as well, but that’s a whole other post in itself.