Free Side Table

I picked up this side table for free at my local dump.



The top and sides had some water damage and the finish was peeling and flaking in spots. I used some stripper I had left over from a previous project to get the rest of the finish off.



My sander seriously got a workout with this one. But I was left with a beautiful oak top.

I left the top but painted the rest of table off white (what else is new?). I really wanted to use some stain I had on hand to complete this table and make it truly "free" but I only had a reddish stain and an ebony stain. The colour of the wood looked so great with the paint that I had to go and get some clear stain to finish this project. I ended up with Minwax Honey Pine, bought from the Mistint Motherload for $3.49. There's also a bunch of stains there that have been discontinued.



This Minwax product is a stain and poly in one and awesome to work with. I love how the wood looks with the paint!





I re-used the drop pulls since they had a nice finish and also looked great with the paint colour.



This really is a fantastic table, solid wood and very well made. I can't believe someone left it at the dump!



Linking with Piece of Work Wednesdays at Primitive & Proper


Frugal Friday at the Shabby Nest

Nightstand Makeover

I picked up this cute little guy at Goodwill for $5.99. It was not half off day so I almost passed it up but then decided even for $6 it could still be a good project.



I have a feeling this was high school woodworking project or something. It's definitely homemade. But it's solid wood and came with a key for the little lock on the drawer.

At first I was going to go with a bright colour for the paint but in the end I just went with boring old off white. I have painted so many things with the same gallon of off white paint it's ridiculous!

I applied this striped paper to the drawer front which I have had in my scrapbook paper stash for over 5 years. Sometimes it pays to hold onto things! It's the exact same colour as my paint, it looks perfect together!





It came with a giant ugly handle in the middle so I took that off and used some wooden knobs that came off another dresser. I used the wooden knobs because it was hard to match the finish of the lock. It's a very light brass colour but looks silver sometimes.



I love these little projects and everything I used I already had on hand.

Party like it's 1999!

Thrifted Pillows

When we purchased our sofa it came with some interesting accent pillows. When I say interesting what I really mean is fug. Straight outta the 80's with radical geometric shapes. I immediately went to Ikea and bought some covers for them. They were okay, just plain brown, nothing fancy. They were good enough for a while. But then they really started to show some wear and it was definitely time to replace them.

Pretty pathetic looking, right?



I drew some inspiration from a couple pages I had torn out of Canadian House and Home and/or Style at Home and headed to Goodwill.

I really love the texture of these pillows and thought they would really add to the room.





I went to the mens sweater section and looked for some neutral knits in good shape. I found a nice cableknit and a plain knit both in beige. I also grabbed a plaid skirt and a red cardigan sweater from the womens section. I took everything home and threw it in wash. When it was all dry I got to work.

I don't have any "befores" of the sweaters but you've seen sweaters before, right?

I took a measurement of the old covers and then measured and cut from the fronts and backs of the two beige sweaters. I put in the pillows and sewed them in. Unfortunately they do not come out for easy washing. One of the sweaters had leather buttons down the front so I took them off and sewed them back down the side of the pillow for a little added interest.





I had new inserts for the red sweater and the plaid pillows. The red cardigan was actually a little easier than the beige sweaters. And it just unbuttons if you want to take the pillow out.





All new pillows for under $10! I love them, they're so cozy.

Linking with:
Apron Thrift Girl, Thrift Share Mondays

Show and Shell

I found this little dresser on Kijiji. It was advertised as free and was only 10 minutes away. I emailed right away after it posted but, when I heard back from the girl, she upped the price to $10. Uh...okay...I told her I'd still come to check it out and if I liked it I would pay the $10.

When I got there it turned out to be a girl from my mom group. I haven't actually talked to her much but I still felt like I had to buy it since I knew her.

It wasn't in too bad of shape, there's a chunk missing from the corner of one the drawers but that just adds character, right? The knobs had to go, they didn't match and there was one missing. I still had 6 oversized wooden knobs from the ReStore waiting for a 3 drawer dresser.



It didn't need much in terms of preparation so I quickly got to painting. It got a couple coats of the same off-white that I've been working with for a few dressers. That gallon has been lasting forever!

Then it sat...and sat....and sat. I was waiting for inspiration. It was almost exactly the same as the antique dresser I did but it didn't have a mirror.



I realized it's the perfect height for a change table so I went with that idea. I tried to make it bright, fun and gender neutral, I really like the way the colours turned out!

Party on, Wayne

Piece of Work Wednesdays at Primitive & Proper

Alphablue Dresser

This is a dresser that I picked up at Goodwill for $5.



By the time I came back with a salesperson to put a sold sticker on it there was someone else looking at it. I kinda felt bad but those are the breaks on 50% day! You gotta be stealthy, like a ninja.

Since I usually do dressers more geared towards little girls I thought it was time to do a dresser for a little boy. So I used the Benjamin Moores, Montpelier that I picked up in the oops section.



I gave the dresser a really good sand (since it had a really thick, super shiny, bad stain job on it) followed by the usual prime & paint. After I painted I was left with a beautiful blank blue/gray canvas. Hmmmm. I really went back and forth on what to paint on the dresser. Numbers, letters, elephants, robots? The possibilities were endless! I was thisclose to doing elephants but, in the end, the alphabet won out. I just thought it would appeal to more people.



I re-used the handles that came on the antique dresser. They're not very pretty but they're masculine and I thought the brushed nickel would look nice with the paint colour.



For the letters I used my super high-tech method of tracing the letters right from my computer screen (because I don't want to waste toner) onto paper and then cutting out the letters and then tracing them onto the dresser. I then painted in the letters with a small brush using acrylic paint.



Hopefully it finds a home in some little guys room.

**** Please enter to win giveaway in my previous post****

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More Paint & Paper

This is the dresser that I came to own quite interestingly,if anyone remembers. After I got it home it needed a good cleaning, followed by a good sanding.



After I sanded I put the drawers back and noticed something else that was...um... interesting. Does anyone else see it? Look closely.



Look at the fourth drawer. Doesn't exactly fit, does it? I had to go back and look at the first picture I took before I took out the drawers. I was sure I would have noticed something like that. But sure enough, the bottom drawer (in the top pic) is too short on each side.

Huh. What the heck? How does that even happen? The only thing I can think of is that this drawer is out of the matching 9 drawer dresser that I didn't buy. But that would mean that the 9 drawer dresser now has a drawer that is too big. Oops.

Anyway, at first I figured I would just paint it up and maybe someone won't notice just like I didn't notice. Then I had one of those Aha Moments that Oprah is always talking about. If I could pry off that wood on top of the drawers and then move it over half an inch it would line up with the other drawers. Luckily it wasn't glued down, only a few nails stood between me and 5 perfectly lined up drawers.

I had already painted before I had the Aha Moment so you can see where I moved over those pieces. At this point I'm thinking "why the heck are these pieces on the drawers anyways?"



I planned on doing some podging in the recessed parts anyways so it didn't matter that there was no paint where I moved the wood over. I picked up the paper at Michaels and got to work podging. I'm basically in love with Mod Podge now.



I bought two new knobs for the top drawer since the original ones were broken. Not the typical knobs I would buy but the finish matched the original handles which I planned on re-using. I did, however, remove the plate that was behind the handles to make them look more updated.

This dresser turned out to be a bit more labour intensive than most dressers but who doesn't like busting out the tools, getting inventive and hammering a few nails?





Party on, Wayne!