Making things OURS

Our first furniture re-do is complete, with more on the way!

Let's rewind a little...
When Devin and I got married (or, rather, when we moved into our first apartment a few months before the wedding), we had no money and almost no furniture. The latter was fixed, however, by the extremely fortunate circumstance of both sets of his grandparents downsizing and moving into single apartments, while his parents were also upgrading parts of their home. We inherited our bed, dresser, two living room chairs, and our kitchen table and chairs...among other things! And in that first apartment, we were on the second floor with only a balcony to access the outdoors; ergo, no major modifications were going to take place on our new-to-us stuff.

NOW, however, we've moved into a townhouse with a small courtyard in the back. Still no patio furniture, but now my "nesting" instinct is really kicking in, and I thought, HEY, let's make some of this inherited stuff really OURS. Project 1: the dresser!

Not bad, just not "us."

 This is not the thing that was completed today.

I think this dresser is about 40 years old (but please correct me if I'm wrong, if you know for sure) - we didn't have any real complaints about it, but we just wanted to upgrade it into something of our choosing. I've seen lots of decoupaged furniture online and I LOVE the look, so it just became a matter of figuring out the when and how.

I used some Christmas money to buy a large print from Michael's, as well as spray paint, wood stain, and drawer pulls. Devin borrowed a power sander from work, and now the only thing stopping us has been the weather...

Day 1: Wash watches me sand.

Day 2: the boys watch Devin sand FO REAL. He is Vice President In Charge of Sanding.

"I'm naked!"

That's all the pictures I have of the dresser for now. It has been spray painted, but the top still needs to be stained - it has a wonderful flamed/spalted top that we decided we didn't want to cover up with paint or paper.

Here's another project, some DIY shelves! The green ones will be in the dining room, the blues will be upstairs in the den/studio. Hopefully we'll get them up this weekend!

We'd like to be useful now, please.

 And now, for the Project That Is Complete: THE NIGHTSTAND.

Yes, the "after" picture is first. If you thought this was the before picture, I suppose I should rethink my new hobby.

 Here's approximately what it looked like BEFORE:

Except the handle was just a small wooden knob. It matches our coffee table (which is currently serving as entertainment center). Both were given to us by my mom, who won them in a church auction. And, as is often the case with church auction items, she had no use for them. We're thankful, but they're BO-RING. :-p

The ivory sides and the dark Kona stain on top are the same colors we're using for the dresser. The drawer front is scrapbook paper; it doesn't exactly match the dresser's print, but the colors are all there. Once we started on the dresser, I figured, why not go ahead and make the nightstand coordinate? I'm pleased as punch with how my first re-do/decoupage turned out! (read between the lines: yes, I would do this for money.)

Love y'all.