The craziest beautiful antiques I have brought home yet

Something happened when I found this set of 16 antique treasures. I started getting a vision for a photo. Inspiration for a gathering. The first pieces for the barn at my event and wedding venue (that I haven’t found yet).  Or I could also say, these are the craziest antiques I have brought home. So far at that time.

(I actually might have just topped this a few days ago. I will share more soon. )

Sure, I saw the not so pretty that they looked like in the listing. But I also saw the potential and how beautiful they could be. But what I didn’t think about was the practical aspects of where they would land until I have that barn and venue. They were not antiques that would fit in a usual size storage unit. 

The Beginning

My oh so wise daughter noticed that when I get a little stressed or sad or have a lot of anxiety- I start browsing marketplace. If I am honest, I browse marketplace daily in the hunt for those elusive treasures that rarely turn up at the thrifts. But browsing and buying are two different things. Last year, when I had a bit of an anxiety producing time, I bought 16 antique 10’ long church pews. Seratonin loading. 

I instantly imagined weddings. Gatherings. Photo shoots. Books signings and events and so much more. With rows of 8 pews on each side of a lovely grassy walkway. Or in a barn. Or by the lake. I could go on. I saw the carvings and the leg details and had a feeling they were pretty amazing underneath the not so amazing blue fabric. 

There were a couple of issues- like that blue fabric and the Smurf blue paint. And even if I was to try to keep the blue and tone it down a bit… most were in pretty rough condition. And we didn’t know what we would find under the fabric. More blue? Another color? Damage? 

History

They were removed from a central California church and were nearly 200 years old. Square nails and hand cut details and no doubt, lots of old patina from the years. And in an even crazier twist, I bought them before even seeing them in person. They were 4.5 hours away from me and the guy offered to deliver them. Which turned into a whole other thing. Do you have any idea how much space you need in a truck to safely load 16 ten foot long antique church pews? They had to bring 2 delivery trucks. Oh boy.

Once they arrived and covered almost this entire section of our front lawn, the reality of there being 16 10’ long pews… with allllll.that.work started to sink in. And since that project staring at me, I started working away at ripping off the fabric and padding, pulling out tacks and nails. The first one took a couple of hours. I thought, this won’t be too bad. But they were not all easy, a lot of old nails that were stuck. Some had the old yellow padding glued to the pew. And a variety of other issues we ran into. 

But my daughter and husband and I had a couple of pew parties and together, we managed to get that all done fairly quickly. We moved them all to the concrete patio area and worked on them one by one. WHAT A MESS that made. It was a great workout for the arms though! 

There were old cracks, holes and a whole lot of old nail holes and dings under the fabric and not any blue paint to match. We actually found 3 more layers of paint under the blue and a beautiful blush that would have been insanely fabulous if it was all that color. Unfortunately, the citristrip was not touching taking off the top bright blue even. So after repairs and removing all the stuff, the next issue was just that. That paint was not budging. I consulted a local expert and he said no thanks on the job haha, but if he was going to do it, sandblasting was going to be the easiest. His recommendation was to just paint over them. We decided that though I envisioned a beautiful bleached raw wood on the pews, a lovely shade of white would be just as beautiful and easier to accomplish.

Each pew took several hours to prime and then paint. And then paint again. And again. The layers of creamy white on them were absolutely lovely and in the evening light, the slight blush undertone comes through. As you can imagine, 16 pews was several weeks of work but working together, we got them done. 

Pretty Painted Pews 

We kept the all the patina, the carved names from naughty kids, the knotholes, the dings and weathered and well worn wood. We thought about filling everything in and sanding smooth but part of the beauty of 200 year old pieces is all the patina and life lived they bring with them. So they are not perfect, but they are perfectly imperfect and honor those parts of the history of these pews and how many years they have seen. 

We set up a few of them in the yard for a mock wedding for a couple of website photos- and they were absolutely incredible with flowers and their curvy backs and legs. 

When I look at them, I do think I was a little crazy when I found them and saw the potential. I have always been a bit crazy, it is me. I am okay with it. 

But I have not purchased something like 16 huge antique church pews and thought it was a great idea before now… so hopefully, the wild hair that encouraged me to do that is me being crazy in a good way. 

Available for Rent for your event

We are now offering these beautiful antique pews for rent for events in Northern California and have delivery from Lake Tahoe to the Wine Country. If you would like to chat about renting them, please message me with your dates, location and how many you would like to rent. (there is a minimum amount) You can see more about these and other vintage rentals on our work in progress website below:

Wren and Reverie.

What do you think of how these pews turned out? And if you think I am crazy, that is okay too.

Happy Tuesday friends.