An Earnest Plea to the Shabby Chic (a rant)
Dear Shabby Chic-ers of Coastal Carolina,
Yes, you may have seen me browsing in your shops and yes maybe I do have a soft spot for the "cottage" look, but please, I beg you, stop destroying perfectly good pieces of furniture.
That's right, I said destroying. Often I'll walk into one of your shops and am horrified to find a perfectly good piece of vintage waterfall furniture (you know the kind) "transformed" into pastel nightmare. Think about it, you took a piece of history, a piece of lovely furniture from the 1930s, and smeared paint all over it and scratched it up a bit. Just because you cover something in paint and take a piece of sandpaper to it doesn't automatically make it better, more attractive, or worth more than it was originally.
Sure people like this look, it sells, but why can't you perform your makeovers on junk? Perhaps the veneer has peeled off or bubbled up- sure go ahead and paint it, perhaps the item is already scratched up beyond repair- by all means lather on the pastels, but for goodness sake, LEAVE THE ANTIQUES ALONE.
As evidence of the crimes you've committed against perfectly good antiques, I give you exhibit A, the before, and exhibit B, the after (both provided in boast by a local shabby chic establishment).
This afternoon, thanks to you and your trusty paint brush, I spent 3 hours sanding off layers of coral paint from a perfectly good cherry wood coffee table that was found at my local salvage shop (that's right, that's where shabby furniture ends up after it's served it's purpose, the salvage shop....not the antique store). But perhaps I should actually, sincerely be thanking you because when all is said and done and your chic pieces have landed in someone's junk pile, they come to me where they shed their paint and are once allowed to show their grain.
Here's to hoping this trend ends soon and you find a new hobby.
Yours truly,
Ginger
Yes, you may have seen me browsing in your shops and yes maybe I do have a soft spot for the "cottage" look, but please, I beg you, stop destroying perfectly good pieces of furniture.
That's right, I said destroying. Often I'll walk into one of your shops and am horrified to find a perfectly good piece of vintage waterfall furniture (you know the kind) "transformed" into pastel nightmare. Think about it, you took a piece of history, a piece of lovely furniture from the 1930s, and smeared paint all over it and scratched it up a bit. Just because you cover something in paint and take a piece of sandpaper to it doesn't automatically make it better, more attractive, or worth more than it was originally.
Sure people like this look, it sells, but why can't you perform your makeovers on junk? Perhaps the veneer has peeled off or bubbled up- sure go ahead and paint it, perhaps the item is already scratched up beyond repair- by all means lather on the pastels, but for goodness sake, LEAVE THE ANTIQUES ALONE.
As evidence of the crimes you've committed against perfectly good antiques, I give you exhibit A, the before, and exhibit B, the after (both provided in boast by a local shabby chic establishment).
A: A lovely piece of furniture with beautiful wood in need of a bit of restoration.
B: A gray mess that makes me wonder, do you actually know how to paint?
This afternoon, thanks to you and your trusty paint brush, I spent 3 hours sanding off layers of coral paint from a perfectly good cherry wood coffee table that was found at my local salvage shop (that's right, that's where shabby furniture ends up after it's served it's purpose, the salvage shop....not the antique store). But perhaps I should actually, sincerely be thanking you because when all is said and done and your chic pieces have landed in someone's junk pile, they come to me where they shed their paint and are once allowed to show their grain.
Here's to hoping this trend ends soon and you find a new hobby.
Yours truly,
Ginger
