increased storage

Lately life has been something like this equation:

living life > blogging

But I am here to report that our stab at refinishing a desk has festered into somewhat of a hobby.  I was at a second hand furniture store and found this sweet little night stand for an amazing price of just $2! I knew I couldn't beat that deal, so I handed over a couple crinkled up ones and jammed it into the back seat of the cavie with ideas buzzing about.

I made the impulse purchase just a few days before our Salt Lake City trip, so I brought it home and it sat until we made it back. Upon our return we realized we had committed ourselves to house sitting, so we brought it along and had glorious amount of space to redo the piece.

 

We had picked up some paint samples while on our trip from various Walmart type stores, but in the end I scratched what we had found and went with "Fern Gully" from the locally owned Ace Store. Thanks Paul!

Quickly we found out why the nightstand had been so heavy, it wasn't actually comprised of wood but made with some particle board type stuff. I mean, technically it is wood but not the kind I was hoping for.

 

Eww.

 We basically followed the same steps used for the desk, except I forgot to water down the paint so it took a little more elbow grease to make the night stand look "roughed up".

In less than three days we were able to get from start to finish. I am so excited to have more drawer space in our room now!

i. am. ecstatic!

made with love

Hello my friends! I have a new and very exciting hobby to report that I have recently taken up. Clayton and I really wanted a different/more practical look for our little bungalow. We settled on the idea of finding older furniture and re-finishing it instead of spending gobs of money on something we'd come to hate in about 2.5 years. I'd have to say for our first attempt we did a fantastic job! I had a rough start, but after one week, a handful of blisters, and four separate trips to Home Depot we have a lovely piece of furniture living under our window in the new sitting room.

Yay for us!

 We found the desk at a little antique trove in the Melrose District at a place called Magpies.

Before it just had a finish on top of the original wood and a little leftover red paint from a previous owner.

 Step one was to strip all the finish and old paint from the desk and drawers. I used a citrus stripper because it was less caustic.

 After scraping everything off we sanded the wood down so it was nice and smooth.

Thank god for power tools, it made this project much easier!

I totally missed out on a few in between pics... we painted a coat of brown before putting on a bright blue. We sanded the parts we wanted to look worn (edges, corners, and bits that are supposed to be worn over time) and put a dark wood finish on it. The last step was to put a matte varnish on it and move it inside!

i hope you know husband deserves almost all the credit :D