D. Croft Antiques

Antiques

I'm generally not a huge fan of shopping (whenever possible, I do mine on the internet) but I always enjoy browsing (and sometimes buying) at antique stores. Fortunately, Lisa does, too. Even more fortunate, we both have the same tastes in pretty much everything, so our only problems are deciding what we can afford and figuring out where to fit everything.
This page gives you a little taste of some of the things we've acquired over the years - and the work that's gone into some of them.

Restoring and Refinishing

     One advantage we have in collecting antiques is that Ernie and Debbie are great at refinishing furniture. Above are some photos of a mahogany French Restauration style highboy dresser we purchased near Iowa City, Iowa. The first two photos were taken soon after we got it back to Chicago. As you can see, it wasn't in great shape; the paint job was bad (a simulated “antiqued” look) and although someone had begun to refinish it, they never got further than the top and one side. Also, one of the front legs was broken and needed to be reattached. Despite these problems, we knew when we saw it that it would be a great piece of furniture if repaired and refinished.
     So after their next visit, Ernie and Debbie brought the dresser back to their shop in Ohio (a.k.a. the garage; second photo from right) and got to work. The finished product is pictured on the far right: a beautiful mahogany highboy that most anyone would be proud to have in their home. (We are in the process of replacing the glass pulls with wooden ones, since that's probably what the dresser originally had.)
     Ernie and Debbie haven’t started a refinishing business yet, but if you’re interested, send me an e-mail and maybe something can be worked out!

Some of our favorite items

For no particular reason - other than that we really like the simplicity of the design - we've started "collecting" a type of American furniture variably referred to as French Restauration, Late Classicism, or Late Empire style (typical of the 1830s-50s); it is heavy, plain, and typified by the presence of S- or C-shaped scrolls. Our first purchase was the highboy discussed above, the second and third were this oak sideboard and the library table (below, right column). Other than some minor repairs, this piece was in great condition when we got it, and we're looking forward to finding a place to put it.

Since I teach anatomy, I'm always on the lookout for neat old charts and things like that. This is an old chart (ca. 1910) of one of the cranial nerves (CN V) that I purchased at an antique store in Iowa City, IA. It is in its original frame, which made it particularly interesting.

In our place in Chicago, we weren't sure what we want to do with this old dry sink. On one hand, we liked how it looked with its old, peeling paint. On the other hand, it didn't match the rest of our furniture very well. Having found a substitute television stand (see photo above and to the right), we moved the dry sink to my campus office as a temporary solution. Fortunately, our new home in Cleveland has a beautiful sunroof, where this old piece fits in quite well.

I managed to pick up this plaque at a benefit auction for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology; it's an old museum display made of plaster that compares the size and position of various skull bones in different vertebrates (in a somewhat directional fashion). The letters are glued on, but have gradually been falling off, so I've had to replace them as best I can.

This serving table is one of those pieces we purchased just because it looked good and we got a good deal on it. We're using it as a television stand in our living room; it works great with the addition of an old crate as a shelf for the video components and DVDs (below).
Interior of Serving Table

By far one of the most useful pieces of furniture we've acquired is this mustard-colored jelly cabinet. We purchased it on a drive from Chicago to Burlington, Iowa and picked it up a few weeks later at the big antique market in Sandwich, IL. (We didn't have room for it in/on the car on the way back to Chicago). It is now one of the few places we're able to store many of our serving platters and small appliances that are too big to fit in standard cupboards. Since one of the latches was missing (see photo above), we bought two matching antique latches (below) and used the singleton to replace the broken latch on the dry sink (pictured to the left).
Jelly Cabinet Locks

This Restauration/Late Classical style library table (note the similar design between it and the sideboard in the background) is another piece that we both loved, couldn't believe the price, and figured we could decide where to put it later. The only work it needed was to plane down the drawer a bit so it would slide in and out smoothly (an easy job, using Ernie's tools).

We (mostly I) also really like antiques that have lots of drawers and/or compartments. The piece pictured above is an old letter file we picked up at the Sandwich Antique Fair that was probably designed to be placed on a desk or a table - near the bottom edge is a small writing shelf that pulls out. Although the letters are fading, across the top is written "National Cabinet Letter File."