The costumes, the cinematography, the setting...and the characters...honestly...who can resist them?! The Ladies and Lords of Downton Abbey, living on several thousand acres in the early 1900's.
The rugs, the vintage silver and lace....and don't even get me started on the furniture! Of course, none of it was vintage at the time, but it was the very same stuff that I'm drawn to today.
The clothes, the jewelry....oh my gosh, the shoes!!!
I even love the maid's uniforms! The lace aprons and collars, the way they somehow always managed to look beautiful...even while carrying a pail or cleaning out the firebox of some huge fireplace. Heck, some days I don't look that good even with makeup.
Everyone at Downton has a story and it was easy for to become emotionally invested...especially after I spent pretty much the entire weekend and every night this week getting caught up on the series. I've decided that this little table reminds me of Ethel, the house maid...you know...after the war....when she had to lower herself to make ends meet.
Obviously, this poor little table fell on some "hard times" at some point in her life. She's oak and when I met her, she had a bad finish, cigarette burns in her top and a drawer that was falling apart. She was sad...and beautiful in her simplicity.
Like her counterpart in the series, my "Ethel" is clearly a hard worker who deserves a second chance. I feel like Mrs. Crawley....when she started the classes after the war for girls who had experienced difficulty in their lives but were willing to work to reclaim their dignity
Yep, that's it, I'm a champion for wayward and lost furniture...helping tables and chairs to find new life after having been cast off by their former owners and, often, falling on desperate times.
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I glued Ethel's drawer but I can still see the mend where the front was cracked. That's just fine with me because I love a good story...
...especially if it involves rescued furniture....and handsome men.
My Ethel's rehabilitation consisted of: two coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Versailles, light distressing, a coat of clear wax and then dark to seal the paint. Of course, she also has a single piece of good jewelry (from Anthropologie)....because she's worth it...and because she's no longer relegated to the basement...she's moving upstairs.
xo,
