The Tale of David Lee

Sept, 2020—Experience—Grant, David Lee, Eric & Tiffany

·      I came across a listing on Marketplace for an antique buffet. It looked in rough shape. 

·      For the price, it was listed at, it was worth checking out.

·      My wife and I jumped in the Bow Tie Treasure chariot and headed over there

·      The house was an old run-down simple house. Weeds, no up keeping here at all.

·      The buffet I came to look at was near the street pretty much in the ditch amongst a lot of weeds.

·      I quickly realized the picture was not telling the whole story

o   I quickly realized that heat and humidity have done a job on this piece.  The doors wouldn’t close, the drawers weren’t sliding.

o   Based on previous experiences I concluded that I could probably get past the wood issue.

o   Since humidity is common in Florida, that’s not a surprise for a piece of furniture that has been exposed to it.

o   I bought an Ethan Allen dresser set some time before this and I was saddened by the fact the drawers were really stuck. I took them home. At the time, my inventory was kept in an extra room. I discovered after leaving the dressers in my house for a couple of months, the moisture left the wood, and everything slide just fine. 

·      I agreed to go ahead and purchase the buffet.

·      While we were there, there was a couple taking items from inside the house and throwing them into a large dumpster. You could tell they were emptying the place out.

·      Not something I would do but my wife was quick and wise to ask….. do you have other pieces for sale?

·      You could see an old beat-up chair sticking up in the dumpster, so it did make us wonder, what else is in the dumpster or the old house.

·      He said we could come in and look around.

·      It was a mess; you couldn’t really see the floor—but you could feel how soft and moving the wood floor was. There were carpets laying all over the wood so you could at least walk on the floor. Super dusty and dirty everywhere.

·      Most of the large items were out of the main front spaces.

·      David Lee—in the back room under cover of a pile of books, tapes, bags, and more.

·      This has had to be the largest piece of furniture I have ever come across. I went into rescue mode. The gentlemen asked me how much I would pay for it. Of course, knowing how much work it would take to get it out and repair it. I didn’t offer much. He agreed.

·      While I was looking at the piece and how I was going to get it out of the house, my wife had ventured to other rooms of the house. There was another bedroom that had several modern pieces of furniture. It wasn’t clear why they were all in there, but we wound up purchased to modern-built dressers which you can find on my page by searching for Eric & Tiffany.

·      We inquired why they were emptying the house out and the story we were told was the young couple was looking to live there once they got the house emptied. Unfortunately, I don’t recall exactly whose house it was but based on what was to come, other parties were not in agreement with what was going on.

·      We loaded up the buffet in the SUV and took it home, but I needed to return later with the trailer to get David Lee.

·      When I returned, It did take about 30 minutes to get all the stuff off, out, and from under David Lee. It was a storage unit for a long time and…