My New Love

Okay - I have discovered a new love of mine and I am so excited about it!  For so long - I have flipped through the Pottery Barn catalogue and admired the gorgeous furniture and decorations.  But spending that kind of money on a piece of furniture just blows my mind!  There are so many other things that I could do with that money - like buy a WHOLE CAR - that runs!  So I have often gotten up at the crack of dawn to go garage sale shopping in the hopes of finding an awesome piece - for a fraction of the price.  My house is living proof of that.  I have tons of awesome pieces that I snagged at a garage sale and I am so proud of them!  I actually get some sort of a high when I get an awesome deal!

So... when I discovered that I could actually use some of my old and "not so cute" pieces of furniture and turn them into something that I would covet in a magazine - I got so excited!  I decided to start with an old night stand that I had sitting in my garage.  It actually goes to my guest bedroom set that - YES - I purchased at a garage sale.  I bought the entire set - a huge dresser, 2 night stands and a King size bed frame and mattress for... $200!  Amazing!!!  I couldn't even buy a nightstand in most of the stores for that price.  It's been sitting in the garage because our guest room felt too tight with 2 night stands in there.  So it was the perfect piece to experiment on. 

(Side note: Don't worry - we don't use that mattress anymore for our guests.  But it definitely came in handy when we only had a futon for them to sleep on.  Much more comfortable.)

Anyways, I decided to google ways to refinish furniture and found that it was a lot more simple then I was thinking.  There are lots of different approaches out there that work.  I chose to go with some primer, sandpaper, spray paint, and some glaze.  I recreated a new nightstand that I am in love with.  It's not perfect - but for my first piece I am pretty proud.  It's amazing what some new hardware can do to a piece.  What do you think?

Before:

And after:

That is more my style and I am very happy with the outcome.  So as I was working on this piece I happened to drive past a house that had a HUGE pile of JUNK in the front yard.  Old boxes filled with magazines from the 1950's, scrap pieces of wood with huge nails sticking out, garbage bags full of trash, and hiding in the middle of the pile, I spotted this:

Except it looked even worse.  It was brown with a big old sticker on it and completely discolored wood.  I figured it would be worth trying to resalvage it seeing that it was FREE!  It couldn't hurt to at least try!  So as you can see, I primed it and am working on finishing it up.  I will post pictures once it is done.  Who knows - it may end up at The Salvation Army once I am done, OR if it turns out how I am hoping then it could just find a new home in my house.  We shall see!  :)