dual personalities

My busy week started unusually well with an antique purchase and pick-up. A couple of weeks earlier, while attempting to avoid doing work, I chanced upon Facebook Marketplace and started looking at the ‘antique furniture’ on sale in my area. Most of it was junk, but imagine my surprise when I came across this desk on sale for practically nothing and only minutes away.

I resisted the temptation to buy it, but when I came across it again and the price had been reduced, I took it as a sign from God and contacted the sellers. They turned out to be a very sweet mother and daughter who live in a lovely, old, antique-filled house in a neighboring town. We had to rent a UHAUL van to transport the desk, because it is rather large and would never fit in the CRV. The ladies couldn’t tell me much about the piece since they had purchased it years earlier in a private deal similar to the one we were conducting.

Several features struck me right away: the lovely hardwood (Can anyone guess what kind? It’s heavy); the handmade dovetails; the bun feet and the Hepplewhite handles. Stylistically, the feet and handles do not seem to go together. As I suspected, the drawer pulls are not original but replaced ones that had a single, central screw. The feet, however, are original,

They are fitted, not by a metal screw but via a peg extension. They seemed quite unusual to me, so I got on the computer and did a little research.

Bun/ball feet are typically found on William and Mary furniture and not Hepplewhite, although style-mixing is not unheard of. I think the locks, which work (it came with a key) were updated in the same renovation that changed the handles. I believe that the finish is original and that the desk could date anywhere from the early 18th century to about 1830 (at the outside), but probably not later.. Does anyone have any style observations to make? I’m no expert and I’d love to find out more. It’s not about monetary value; it’s about preventing a beautiful piece of history from falling into the hands of barbarians who paint antique furniture.

The plan is to move my parents’ desk from its spot in the living room up into Tim’s room, and to put the new desk where the old one stood.

This will entail getting rid of the super heavy student carrel currently in Tim’s room. Since the new desk is several inches taller and wider than my parents’ desk, we’ll also need to raise the gold mirror a couple of inches. If that doesn’t look good, we’ll have to do some picture-shifting. Much as I love my parents’ desk, I don’t mind moving it. Its finish isn’t in great shape and it’s not an antique. Keep your fingers crossed that this all goes as planned. Otherwise, we’ll have to rearrange the furniture even more! By next week everything should be in place and I should have photos. In the meantime, have a great weekend and say a prayer for our aged backs as we heave these pieces up and down stairs and around corners!