A Vintage Humidor

8:18 AM Katy 11 Comments

If you're following along, so far I've cataloged a vintage coke crate, Miller High Life girl, and now here is another piece of crap antique that I pulled out of the shack before demolition:

When I first unearthed it in the bedroom, it was full of bottles of peroxide. (Do not think too hard about that. Trust me.)

It was in rough shape but I liked the lines of the legs and thought it would be darling between two twin beds. (In the beach house in my imagination, that no one else could see, which is why everyone groaned and said "why are you touching that?")

Anyway. When I got it home and explored it, I realized that the inside of the cabinet was copper!

After some googling, it turns out that cigar humidors were made with copper commonly in the 20's to 40's.

The previous owner had some interesting crap, after all.

Not worth the $6k in demolition costs, unfortunately, but interesting all the same.
Almost done -- first coat of Ocean Breeze spray paint. Not sure if this will be the final paint color, but at least it looks clean and smells acceptable. (I was lazy again with no dropcloth and now there's a patch of my garage floor that is pale aqua. sigh )

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  1. Love, love, love. That's my favorite spray paint right now, and I would cover nearly everything in my house with it if I could get away with it.


  2. Wow, what a treasure! And its a really nice piece for your home. I am following along on your beach house adventure and enjoying all of your ups and downs. Thanks for sharing!

  3. Was this Shorty's primary residence? Copper theft is at an all-time high around here so something like that, if noticed, would have been busted to pieces.

    This spray paint that you're using, how much prep has to go into the wood? I have a sewing machine table coming from my mother in law but it's an 80s oak. I want to put it in the basement between some bookshelves that are white so it's need a makeover.

  4. Yeah Nikki, copper is a hot theft item but none of the thieves know what a vintage humidor is. HA They wouldn't look in a wood cabinet!

    I sanded this thing with my new higher horsepower sander with rough grit paper. Then I had to prime with my KILZ.

  5. Do you know what happened to old Shorty? This series of posts makes me want to clean out all my weird crap (*not as weird as his*) just in case I kick it and strangers come into my house. Or my parents.

  6. girl, you need to sell that copper now! at least to pay for some of that tequila.

    oh, the table looks fab!

  7. I would kill for that piece of crap. I have one too w/ the copper inside...very cool. Hope all is well w/ you...........Sue

  8. lol @ mollysusie, yes after we got done with the house we all raced home and cleaned out our garages, workshops, closets, you name it.

    The poor old man died in his yard. He didn't have any family that cared about him, until it came time to sell his "estate". It's pretty sad.

  9. Totally adorable! You have an eye for the good stuff in the crap. Please keep sharing (I'm living vicariously through you!!).


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