What help do youw ant? You have found a treasure trove!
The cupboard is a pie safe...one of the newer (??) ones dating to maybe 1920...probably before. Those round places on the side held screening to allow for ventilation and also keep the bugs out.
The buffet is oak....sort of mission-ish style....and the dresser that's missing the drawers is another 1920's piece....very nice...will look great cleaned up....with the drawers!
And that last piece looks to be part of a "gentleman's dresser" with a tall morror and another lower 2 drawer chest....makes a good bedside table.
Linda C

Thanks Linda!

Can anyone give me any ideas of what, if anything, I should put in the pie safe when I remove that pink wallpaper? It definitely has to go!!

Here is another piece he found... again, we are totally clueless what it is. It has one big door. Inside are shelves.

These pictures are of some sort of tool but we can't figure it out either... kind of looks like a huge kitty litter scoop :) Maybe used to pick up walnuts??? Again, any ideas?

He also brought me lots of refrigerator boxes, crocks, and other little stuff.

I think I have some good fall/winter projects, getting these pieces all cleaned up!

Can't help, but what a treasure trove! Let us see pics after you've cleaned up everything!!

That piece of furniture with the big door lookes like a wash stand, or a dry sink...place to wash up. Probably stood on the back entry next to the ice box.
Any clue about the use of that scoop from where you live? I have seen one before...but can't remembr what it was for. It's different from a walnut picker-upper...maybe a clam scoop? To scoop out of a bucket? Not like a clam rake?
Linda C

I am in Iowa so I doubt it is a clam picker-upper!

I did find out about the piece with the big door.... a neighbor who remembers the piece told me-- it is a music cabinet. All the shelves inside are what sheet music sat on. Makes sense after she told me! I did find the key to it but the lock is pretty stuck so I don't know if the lock will work or not!

Those music cabinets are great for needlework or knitting patterns. The shelves are perfect for sorting them.

I should have guessed that as we had one when growing up.

I'll see if I can find a pic of the tool in any of my old farm implement books.

I'm in Iowa too -- what a great find! I need to hang out where you do!!

Cathy

Another in Iowa here too....which is likely why that "thing" looks familiar...seen many of them sold from the hay rack at a farm sale!
Would it be a silage scoop?.
Never mind....think giant kitty litter scoop...I think it's for cleaning up behind the cows in the milking stalls. For picking up the soiled straw...I think!
Should havd known the music rack....but every one I have seen has been narrower and taller...
Could it be for blue prints? Those cabinets were wider.
Linda C

Great stuff! I especially like the Arts & Crafts buffet and the little stand with that odd, art nouveau-ish drawer pull. I wish we'd stumble upon a bunch of furniture like that!

Is #4 an ice chest?

No, it isn't an ice chest. My mom has a couple of those and they are lined. This isn't lined. She saw a picture of it and thinks it may be a commode??????

On another thought-- He brought more stuff home today. I will try to post pictures tomorrow... an upholstered settee and 2 chairs (definitely DON'T want but someone may!), picnic baskets, chamberstick, and a few other odds and ends.

Mineral spirits don't seem to be cutting some of the crud on some of the pieces... am I not scrubbing hard enough? not waiting long enough? Or is there something stronger I could try?

THANKS!!

Try a mixture of 2/3 shellac thinner and 1/3 laquer thinner....and have lots of paper towels to mop it up with.
That little piece with the fancy pull is part of a gentleman's dresser...40 to 50 years ago people were buying them up and taking them apart and they had a low chest, a tall mirror and a little bedside chest. There are varying reports on what that door in the small chest was used for....some said the chamber pot and others said a top hat. I am inclined to believe it held a chamber pot!
Linda C

Here is a link that might be useful: gentleman's dresser

Thanks Linda! Now I just have to find where to buy shellac thinner and lacquer thinner. I doubt you can buy them at HyVee or Dollar General LOL There isn't much else in our town!

I told my husband that the little piece was actually part of a set of 3 pieces. He said he will try to look in the shed to see if there can be anything else. The shed is absolutely awful and all the stuff he has found has been buried under years and years of trash.

This may be the last day that they can get in the shed. It is (was) owned by an elderly woman from our church who had never married-- she has sold the property and the new owners want nothing to do with the contents and are planning on pushing it all in and burning it within the next few days. The only reason she asked my husband if he wanted anything out of it was because she needed someone to help her get a couple of things she wanted out of there. The things she wanted are absolutely junk-- as in TRASH-- and she wants absolutely nothing to do with any of the stuff he has been bringing home. He jumped at the chance to get into the shed though because her parents, and grandparents before them, had owned the town's hardware store. He has found all sorts of stuff -- old wrenches, tools, boxes, etc that were exactly what he was hoping he would find when she approached him at church about helping him. I guess it is true that what is one man's trash is another man's treasure!!

Wow-get as much as you can out of there before the property changes hands, and deal with what you want versus what you don't want later! It would be a shame to have more interesting things get destroyed, as they may surely have some kind of value to someone, even if you have to give them away. I just don't understand the slash and burn mentality of some people when it comes to these old treasures.

the wall paper try warm water and a putty knife to remove, the grunge try kotton kleanser regular that one is for wood, shellac thinner is denatured alcohal, be cardfull it is flammable.

I think the wire scoop thing is a potato shovel. Nut scoop is a possibility if you have nut trees there. I see those here where I live, lots of walnuts and almonds grown here.

Wow! What a great bunch of stuff---I'm reading about it all from Connecticut, and I'M excited!! I just found this site by accident today and am having a ball surfing around. I haven't done any refinishing in a long time, but maybe someone could advise you on a product I saw one night when my husband was watching QVC. It's specifically to remove paint and varnish, yet is supposed to be very gentle. It did an unbelievable job when I watched them demo on the show. You'd have to refinish it, tho, and you mentioned that you'd not done that to any of your pieces. Have fun---I'm envious!!
Dennie

Your last piece (the music cabinet) would make a great liquor cabinet, assuming that the shelves for sheet music are removed. I have a similar one in my dining room. Mine has a drawer, which is a handy place for storing a corkscrew, coasters, etc.

Item #4, with the fancy brass pull, looks more like something called a "half commode" to me. The glass knob is almost certainly a later replacement, since it's a rather disastrous combination with the large brass pull on the drawer. A chamber pot would have been kept in the lower section with the door for use in the bedroom at night. Remember, many homes did not have indoor plumbing until the 1920s, and in cities it was not uncommon for several apartments to share a single toilet! (Chair-type commodes are much less common, possibly because they were less efficient uses of space.) In many commodes this cabinet section would have been lined for cleanliness with tin, enameled metal, or even marble in very fancy ones, but often they were just painted or varnished. As a comparison for overall shape, here is another half commode:

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They do indeed make excellent nightstands, and you'll often find them labeled as such in antique shops and on eBay. Sometimes people will retrofit a shelf inside the cabinet section to make it a more useful space.

A full or double commode, also sometimes called a washstand, generally looks like one of these two pieces:

FWIW, these are what I know as a gentlemen's dresser:

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I know the glass knob is a added-on later feature! I am just trying to figure out what to look for to replace it with something that looks much better. PLUS- I have another use for the glass knob :)

Someone from church called it a commode too...and now that my mom has seen it in person, she swears it is a commode too. I have gotten it all done too, except to fix the shelf-- it has a crack in it. We have determined that there must have been another drawer at one time. The top drawer will slide into the base perfectly. It is hard to tell from the pictures. It hasn't made it to my bedroom for a nightstand though... My hubby liked it so well that he thinks it needs to be admired more so it is now an end table in my home office. I will try to get a picture of it in its new home!

If it were my piece of furniture, I would just use a simple, plain, small antique brass knob - keep the emphasis on that wonderful drawer pull. Solid brass, not plated. Horton Brasses carries a nice selection of brass hardware. If a family member or friend is very good at matching stain a small, stain-matched wooden knob would not go amiss either.

However, since you said that there was once a drawer at the bottom I went back and peered closely at it, it is not a commode. Previous posters were correct, it is part of a gentleman's chest that was torn apart. (How sad.) It looked like the front bits were proper legs, which is why I was saying commode. Sorry!

Looking at it~~ It was not attached to anything at the bottom. It appears that it has always been a stand alone piece. They are proper legs. There is just an area that looks like it may have had a drawer at one time. It very well may have been part of a set but it wasn't attached to a bigger dresser like in the picture above.

It doesn't matter anyways. I still really like it. The price was right :) and it was fun cleaning it up.

Is there any evidence that there was ever a back splash on it?..Like at the back of the top piece?
Linda C

There is no evidence of a backsplash at all. I will try to baby my camera along tomorrow and take some pictures of it... front and back. Besides, you guys all need to see how much better it looks now :)