Isn't she lovely?

Well, I couldn't be happier. I finally, finally found a cool, cheap thrift shop with some neat old furniture! It's only about 5 minutes from my house, believe it or not, but in a section of town that I don't really frequent. And it's packed full of cool old stuff--for reasonable prices!

This was my first purchase:





It was $15. A little more than I wanted to spend, but it was EXACTLY what I had in mind as a night stand for our room. When we bought our bed and dresser, I refused to buy the matching nightstands. I didn't want a whole "bedroom suite"--waaay to "matchy-matchy" for me. And seriously, $15 is NOT that much.
 So I took it home and pulled out the drawers, where I found someone's forgotten bra shoved in the back. Yup, a bra. The kids were all screaming like I had just discovered someone's severed hand in the drawer. Threw that away, moving on... (don't tell googiedaddy...it's his nightstand)


I gave the whole thing about 3 coats of black spray paint, letting it dry between. And then I let it...ahem, cure for a few days. (or I got sick of painting and left it sit on the porch for 2 days)

Either way, I should mention it was at this point that googiedaddy pleaded with asked me if I would like him to take it to work and spray it.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that googiedaddy makes furniture. For a living. Like, professionally. Custom, high end furniture. And he has a big honkin' shop with a big honkin' spray booth, with spray thingys and lacquers and glossy stuff and tints and glazes and staple guns and dacron and upholstery type things. The point being, when I pull out the cans of spray paint and head towards a piece of furniture, it is the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to googiedaddy.


However, I am not only the world's cheapest crafter, I am also the most impatient (is there a blog award for that?) And so, I spray paint.


Moving on...


After three coats of spray paint and sufficient "curing" time, I took sandpaper to it and distressed the edges, fronts and top. Then I watered down a rich brown acrylic and rubbed that over the distressed areas so they weren't so bright. A quick coat of clear to protect everything, and this is what we have:





(I should point out that I didn't do anything to the handles and knobs. I took them off at the beginning, and just screwed them right back on at the end, minus the one screw I lost in the process. I liked the way they looked.)


I think I may have gone a little overboard on the distressing, but once I got it in place in the room I really like how it looks. Actually, it may have to go on my side of the bed :0)

Now I have to get back to work on some more pillows for the bed!

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