Old is better than new—at least once Lisa Drobka or Gwen Parsons gets a chance to work their magic on a vintage piece of furniture.
Both have very different backgrounds, techniques and styles, and, while neither considers themself an “artist,” they both specialize in transforming old, worn furniture into beautiful, “new” works of art.
Lisa Drobka, Lulu & Honey
Lisa Drobka first dipped her toe into the world of furniture restoration about five years ago, when she needed to find a low-cost way to stage a house she was planning to use as a short-term rental. She researched the art and spent several weeks taking classes from nationally renowned experts.
The more she learned, the more she found that she loved upcycling furniture through paint. Many of her pieces showcase a feminine style, as she often adds metallic gold or silver floral appliqués made from resin molds to dressers painted in light pinks, blues and purples.
Recently, she says she has been doing a lot of “poured top” pieces—a technique she uses to create a marbled look for the top of a table or a dresser.
“I take paint and I pour it on the top, and then I move the furniture all around so that it turns into a pattern; you keep doing it until you like it. And then I do a resin pour on top of it, and that is what makes it shiny,” she explains.
A few years ago, Drobka set up shop as Lulu & Honey—named after her French bulldog, Lulu, and her grandchildren’s pet name for Drobka, Honey—opening a booth in the Belle Mercantile marketplace in Bellefonte as a place to sell her transformations. She has added more retail products to her shop there, selling what she calls “littles” in addition to furniture—items like dog toys and treats, children’s clothing, jewelry and other accessories. In addition, she became the local retailer for Dixie Belle Paint Company, distributor of the paint with which she most likes to work.
Drobka also occasionally sells furniture through an Etsy site, and has even hand-delivered pieces as far as Nashville, Tennessee. She sometimes donates pieces to fundraising raffles or auctions, and her family often benefits from her creativity, as she likes to make pieces for her children and grandchildren. When she takes on a custom piece for someone, she gives them an estimate up front, based on the labor intensity and on how much it’s something she enjoys doing.
“I’m not making millions off of this,” she says. “But it keeps me busy, focused, and happy.”
Drobka does most of her work inside a studio at the former Sutton Engineering building in Bellefonte. She attends auctions and scours consignment stores like Arcadian Consignment, Vintage & Antique Co. in State College and Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore in Bellefonte to find high-quality furniture in need of a facelift.
Today, her collection of furniture awaiting transformation takes up several garages.
“I only work with really good pieces of furniture. Unfortunately, good furniture is easy to find,” she laughs.
Drobka tends to downplay her talent and strongly encourages others to give furniture flipping a try. She often features how-to videos on her Facebook and Instagram pages.
“It’s not that hard,” she says. “It’s really something people can do themselves. If people realized how economical it is to refinish furniture—you can find phenomenal pieces, have something uniquely customized to you, and you save it from a landfill.”
Gwen Parsons, Firefly Finishes
Gwen Parsons was just 12 years old when she rescued her first piece of furniture.
“My parents and I went to a flea market, and I saw this nasty old rocking chair for five dollars. I just had to have it. I brought it home and I just started restoring it,” she says.
That experience kicked off a lifelong passion that Parsons has turned into her own small business, Firefly Finishes. While she does paint some furniture, she prefers doing the opposite: removing the paint from old furniture, uncovering the original wood underneath and restoring it to its former glory.
“When you see this beautiful oak or gorgeous maple covered up with paint—to me, that is heartbreaking,” she says.
Parsons is particularly fond of working with antiques.
“They’ve withstood the test of time. … There’s no pressboard in an old oak table or an old serpentine dresser front. Bottoms are solid wood, and the backs, and the sides, and the dovetail—you’re not going find that at a furniture store today,” Parsons says.
She enjoys the challenge of restoring family heirlooms that people have had for generations. She says people come to her through word of mouth to do custom work on all sorts of antique furniture.
Much of her work is detail-oriented, involving intricate ornamental designs, such as claw foot pedestals and other ornate carvings. Research is often involved, as with a project involving restoring an antique trunk that had been painted silver. Besides figuring out how to safely strip the paint, Parsons spent quite a bit of time researching how to remove and reattach or replace the trunk’s leather straps.
“There’s more that goes into this than I’m sure most people have any idea,” she says.
For the most part, she works on more traditional items like dining tables, side tables, hutches, dressers, beds and chairs. The most unusual piece she was ever tasked with transforming? A casket.
In addition to doing custom work, Parsons displays and sells restored furniture through a booth at Victorian House Antiques in Bellefonte. She has collected some of her furniture from Centre Peace and other sources, but these days, she says she gets most of it from people seeking her out when they are looking to unload some of their old furniture. As such, she recently found herself with four garage bays full of antiques—such an overwhelming amount that she decided to weed out the less desirable pieces or things she knew other people could use right away.
Parsons says she does all of the sanding work in her garage and has a dedicated workspace inside her home for the refinishing work. She seems genuinely surprised by the amount of business she draws and says she strives to charge reasonable rates. Her price for custom work includes pick-up and delivery of furniture.
“I’m probably not charging enough,” she says. “As weird as it sounds, if I can take a maple table that someone has had for 50 years, that has big marks and scratches on it, and make it beautiful—to see the smiles on their faces when it’s done, that’s why I do this. I’m just making people happy. And I love it.” T&G
Karen Walker is a freelance writer in State College.
