Beachy drawers!

Here's a nice little makeover. Picked this up at a local second hand shop, 

it had been stripped and  painted in what I think was one of those all in one varnish/stain finishes, so looked a bit rough. The top had been cut down at some time and didn't really fit properly so that had to come off. Now on the back is a stamped crown and GR VI (King George 6th)

and the lock had 1944 embossed on it, so that dates it for us. It is good but very basic construction of timber and plywood, wooden handles. Apparently 'Utility' furniture for the home (a UK Government scheme which was designed to cope with shortages of raw materials and rationing during the war) has a different mark but this looks to be made in a similar way and definitely from WWII, it could well be office furniture, maybe civil service, anyway, quite interesting.

As it needed a new top I played around with ideas and then my brainy wife came up with the idea of using 'planks' of wood in a drift wood style............off to get an old pallet, and spend most of the day breaking it up, those thing are tough! I used a couple of pieces for my sign and most of the rest went on the top.

With a bare wood top we needed a beachy look, so the bodywork was rubbed down and primed, then painted off white followed by blue. I distressed it with a blade and waxed it as we do, varnished the top and that's it!

 

It doesn't look quite as bright as it does in the photos (it must have freaked my camera out!), only has one lock in place and no key (yet) but I am pleased with the way it came out, quite a turn around, it's going to the market on Saturday. I wonder what the folks from 1944 would have made of it's new incarnation?