n.
1. A piece of dining room furniture having drawers and shelves for linens and tableware.
2. A board that forms a side or part of a side: the sideboards of a skating rink.
3. sideboards Chiefly British. Sideburns.
We arrived bright and early (okay, so we got there at noon, whatever) at the estate sale in Sharpsburg to discover that "our" sideboard was still there and unsold. The asking price was indeed $395 and we were indecisive. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the piece had a lot of veneer and a lot of it was missing. The veneer was made of tiger oak and was really very pretty. The entire top of the sideboard was missing the veneer, though, and while the rest of the sideboard seemed to be in good condition, we still weren't sure if we were ready to hand over $400 of our savings for it. We checked the back in vain hopes of seeing an indication that it was a hideously valuable Stickley or something, but no such luck. After an hour of poking around through the rest of the sale and finding various odds and ends to buy (including a mission style coat rack for $25, missing one hook, of course...), we ended up back at the sideboard. The lady told us it was very old--late 1800s (highly unlikely) to early 1900s--and that was about all she knew. She told us that a couple of dealers had expressed interest in the piece and she was reluctant to bargain on the first day of the sale, and finally said she would take $345. An hour later we were in the P'tree City Home Depot renting a truck for two hours. Half an hour from P'tree City to Sharpsburg, half an hour to load it in securely, half an hour back to the house, half an hour back to P'tree City...easy, huh? Not quite. We also had to stop and fill the truck back up with gas, get the thing unloaded and in the house, and navigate traffic. Two hours and 13 minutes later, we were back at Home Depot. Still, it only cost $34 for the rental, so we still came out under the original asking price of $395 in the end, I guess.
After much cleaning and oiling and waxing, the sideboard is gorgeous. The top is pretty rustic looking, the mirror has been replaced, and it looks like it might have originally been a dark brown, more mission typical, stain. Appears as if someone took some steel wool to it in places, but luckily they are all hidden (inside doors, under the shelf, etc.) from view. The color is now a reddish brown, but it's very pretty. Looks like all the "repair" that was done to it happened a long time ago, though. We think it's not a great specimen of Craftsman work, but more of the mass market variety. Not sure who made it, but it's got numbers stencilled in white on the back of the mirror/shelf and the sideboard itself.
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