A while back, while visiting an old friend, Nathan discovered an entire collection of factory carts. That might not exactly explain how we found them, but lets just say there are many more where this one came from. Crazy, right? We had no intention of getting into restoring factory carts, but these had such beautiful potential that we had to try our hand at it. No. 36 is our first attempt…and I am in love…
After much research, we realized there are varying levels of restoration that you can do using various methods. We decided that we wanted to be very thorough in our restoration, but not change the character that the piece had acquired over time in the wood or in the iron.
Nathan deserves all the credit here. He fully disassembled the cart…taking the time to keep all the original nails for the wood and all the original bolts for the iron.
After taking off all the iron parts and cleaning them thoroughly, he then sealed them with a clear wax. Many have restored their carts with a black wax to make the iron pop…but we loved the industrial aged look that the clear wax gave. You can see here a HUGE difference in the before and after…and how beautiful the iron is even with out the black tint added…
As for the wood, he was careful enough to save each & every original nail as he took the cart apart. Once the wood was bare, he sanded each board to get all the dirt, paint and splinters off. He was careful to get the boards nice and smooth, but not sand so much that it took away all the variations in the wood. Again, you can go further than this, sanding the wood much more…but this cart was very much USED in its lifetime…we didn’t want to take it back to looking brand new again. That is called “taking the cool-ness away”. Our very professional opinion.
Before…
After:
And finally…because my husband is so smart…he added “kickstands”. The side wheels do come down to the floor, but we raised them in the image below so you can see. These kick stands lock into place to make the piece sturdy for use…but can be flipped back under easily to move the piece. He distressed and stained the wood on the stands so they wouldn’t stand out too much. The cart is plenty sturdy with just the wheels but we like this addition, especially for use as a coffee table. Pretty cool, no?
Factory carts are everywhere, but I am still so much in love with this!! We plan to sell this one to see how it does…and of course do one for ourselves!
SO, if you like this one and would like us to do more…let us know!! This particular one {No. 36} will be up in the shop in the next day or so…I just have to verify that it isn’t already spoken for. The cost on these will all be $675 plus shipping {or if you live close enough to the Lynchburg VA area, let us know}.
Cheers!
s
