Finding Treasures and Drawer Pulls

About eleven years ago I found an great old dresser, at this junky "antique" store, in a tiny town somewhere in Oklahoma.  The guy had a tag on it for $200 and saw me admiring it and asked if I was interested.  I said I was, but that the price was more than I was looking to pay.  He asked how much I was willing to pay and I told him that I had $40 on me.  He said that it sounded fair to him...and the dresser was mine.  I paid him and he held it for me until I could return the next day with my husband and our SUV. 


{image via ebay: this is similar to my find except, my top drawer is curved and it is now refinished and pretty!}

The next day, when we arrived to pick it up I noticed he had an outdoor area with old wood tables covered in junk treasures.  So while my husband and he loaded the old dresser into the car, I looked around and spotted two vintage metal fans.  I picked them up (knowing that I've seen them at many antique stores and flea markets and everyone wanted an arm and a leg for them) and headed over to ask him what he wanted for them.  He said, "pretty lady, you can have em for a dollar each." (oh, to be 21 again!!)  I thanked him profusely, paid him quickly and we were all set to go with our new junk treasures. 

{image via ebay: this is very similar to the style of my two fans and is the only example I could find with the same base style, but mine are in much better condition}

Driving home my husband was asking why I wanted the old dresser (mind you, he wasn't complaining, since it was so inexpensive), and was curious as to what attracted me to it.  I told him that, once he has time to look at it, he'll notice that it's solid wood, it has dovetail joints on all the drawers, it has cool old brass key holes on the drawers and it's Empire Style.  I told him that there was probably a gorgeous piece of furniture under all that ugly chocolate brown paint. 

{image via Paxton Hardware: again very similar to mine}

And, I was right!  I spent a few long days and nights stripping off all the paint, sanding the piece within an inch of it's life and applying a coat of tung oil to finally reveal my treasure!  Some of the original wooden knobs were missing so I refinished two of them to use on the top curved drawer and added antiqued brass lions head pulls to the remaining drawers.  We used the dresser, in our own room, for years, until I found out a baby was coming and decided to use it in the nursery.  It was really cute in there, but lately I've been thinking about changing out the knobs when we get our stuff out of storage.  Here are a few in the running...

I love these if we decide not to use it in our sons room....the perfect choice if we use it in the foyer!

{image via marjorie skouras design}

but, if we keep it in our sons room, any of these knobs from Anthropologie would be perfect....


...or would you rather I just stick with the lions head pulls?

So, do you have any interesting treasure hunting stories of your own you'd like to share?  If so, I'd love to hear about them and possibly share them here on 1GS!