Aqua Nightstand

With two little babes now I don't find it very easy to pack 'em both up and head to Goodwill and hope for good moods and patience from both of them.  However, I did get over there recently with just the littlest babe and picked up this cute little nightstand.

I really dig the cutesy, vintage shape.  Obviously it's perfect for a girl's room which I really enjoy doing pieces for.  Sorry little dudes out there!




Sand?   Check!
Prime?  Check!
Paint?  Check!

I'm using up a couple cans of paint I have before I buy anything new so you're going to be seeing some repeat colours.

This is the Benjamin Moore, Waterfall that I used to paint J's dresser.  I'm still in love with this colour!







Mod podge is still my favorite way to add something unique to pieces so I used some pages from the Mosaic Memories paper pad from Michaels.  Love this paper pad!

The drawer front received some fun, floral paper along with some coordinating striped paper for the drawer bottom.  I used some extra knobs from another piece and spray painted them with Tremclad's Hammered in brown.

The top, shelf and drawer front received a coat of polycrylic for some extra protection and c'est fini!

I love lamp

Has everyone who has seen Anchorman and has posted about a lamp used this title?

Yes? Okay, moving on then.

This is more of a test post than anything. I'm trying out the new Blogger and using Chrome which I don't normally use. Have I ever mentioned that I hate change?  Hate it.  Anyways, the only thing I have to post about is this great lamp I picked up at Goodwill.

I first spotted it out of the corner of my eye and thought it was a Jonathon Adler lamp. It's not but wouldn't that have been AMAZING?!?!.

I love this little lamp, the shade looks great in J's room plus the bird is perfect because I just put up this great peacock wall decal.

Has anyone else found anything great at Goodwill lately?

This One's a Keeper

Over the past year I've slooowly been
working on J's room makeover.

It started out as a gender neutral
room but, now that I have two girls,
I'm switching it up.

One big step was switching out this
little red mdf dresser I had in there
for a bigger, solid wood dresser.







I found this dresser on Kijiji for $25. It's a little scary, no?

Silly me thought the bad paint job would be easy to remove since it was doing a good job of that all by itself. Sigh, when will I learn? The very first dresser I stripped was so easy and every one since has been a nightmare. And each time I swear "never again".


After I stripped and sanded (and sanded and sanded) the dresser received a new and improved paint job. The colour is Benjamin Moore, Waterfall in semi-gloss. I just love this colour, it's just so light and airy. I gave the top and drawer fronts some extra protection with a few coats of polycrylic.





The pink, painted wooden knobs had to go and I replaced them with some old, vintage looking knobs I found at the ReStore. I had hoped to find 10 of the same knobs but no luck. I did find 6 of one kind and 4 of another that were all flowers so I got those. The bottom two drawers are bigger than the top three so I'm hoping the difference in knobs/size makes sense.



The knobs got a good scrubbing then primed and sprayed with matte white spray paint. Originally I wanted clear crystal knobs but until Hobby Lobby (and their 50% off coupons) come to Canada, that ain't happening. In the end I really dig the white knobs.



It's nice to keep a piece of furniture for once, I can admire my hard work every time I go in the room. A few more little projects and this room will be finished!


~Ain't no party like a Cassie party~

One baby and one year later...

Could we just pretend it hasn't been almost a year since my last post? No? Okay, that's fair but, in my defense, I was a little busy. I had another one of those babies everyone is always talking about. This one's pretty cute, too.



But she's getting a little older so it's time to get back to painting stuff.

I like painting stuff.

I miss painting stuff.

Do you want to see the stuff I painted?



These nightstands were listed on Kijiji for a steal. I took it as a sign to get started again. Nice little nightstands but heavy as all get out. I don't know what type of wood they are but they are solid!



I wanted to paint them more adult than the usually kid stuff I do. Plus, I figured that people are more likely to be buying a set of nightstands for an adult's bedroom.

I still have a ton of supplies so I just got to sanding and painting. Since it's been such nice weather I got to use my sprayer, yay! Love that thing.

Here they are!




The nightstands were painted with Benjamin Moore, Moon Rise. Which I had left over from painting our kitchen cabinets. The tops were stained with Minwax Red Oak.



I used some antique brass pulls that I've had forever. I bought six of them to use on another project but they didn't look right.



Now I need something to use the other four on. So check back in, I might have another project soon!



I haven't partied with Cassie in, like, FOREVAH !!!
:::waves hi to Cassie:::

Retro Nightstand

Since the warmer weather is taking it's own sweet time getting here, I've decided that little pieces of furniture are perfect for me while I'm still stuck inside painting. Where are you, Spring?!?!

I bought this little retro nightstand for $3.99 at Goodwill. I love when pieces are cheap because they're so ugly.



It needed a little work before I could start painting. It was missing a knob and I thought the surviving one was a little too small. I found another knob off a previous retro nightstand I did so I filled in the holes and drilled new ones. I sprayed the gold knob and the legs with a brown hammered spray paint. I also didn't like the recessed grid pattern on the drawer so I filled it in with wood filler and sanded smooth.



After that work I was ready to prime and paint. I'm trying to work through all the paint I have before buying any new mistints. I mixed together two whites I had and then added some red to make the pink for a stencil and the cubby hole.

After painting the nightstand white I made a stencil using contact paper. If you want to try this just remember you have to reverse your image before drawing it onto the back of the paper. If you press down on the contact paper really well (and not use a lot of paint) it will make a nice clean line. If there's any separate pieces of the stencil you can use a pin to peel up carefully.



I used Modpodge to line the drawer with a cute piece of scrapbook paper I had in my craft stash.



I loved how this little lady turned out. So cute, I love her sassy little legs!





Linking up:

Back in the Game

Some of you may recall that I used to paint furniture. In fact that's all I used to do until the cold weather hit. I haven't painted anything in a long time so I picked up something little to ease back into it.



I bought this solid wood nightstand at Goodwill. And let me tell you the pickings are slim in there. I only bought one thing at a time last year (so I didn't fill up the garage) but now I can see that I need to stock up the winter. I can't wait until people start their spring cleaning!

No real prep needed with this one, just a quick sand and a coat of primer. I did have a hard time picking the paint colour I wanted. I ended up using the aqua I used on the french provincial dresser since I had lots left over and I paid full price for that can, ouch!

I had picked up the knob at Michaels a loooong time ago and matched it to some scrapbook paper to line the drawer with. It's my dream that someday Michaels will have the knob selection that Hobby Lobby has. Or better yet, Hobby Lobby comes to Canada! Come on Hobby Lobby, we got Ketchup Chips and Poutine here! You know you love it!




So I'm left with an adorable little nightstand, nothing so special or original but I think it's cute!


Almost forgot! Partying with Cassie & Miss Mustard Seed:

Flower Bed(ding)

Some of you may remember from last month I posted about a dresser I was going to do for a friend. She wanted it to match the bedding for her little girl's bedroom. Everyone gave lots of great advice on how I should go about painting the dresser inspired by this bedding:



I gave her two different sketches for her to pick from. She picked option B.


Here's what the dresser looked like when I brought it home. Definitely not pretty enough for a little girls room. I took off the hardware, filled in the holes, sanded, primed and painted.


I drew the flowers out on paper and then arranged them on the dresser to make sure I had the scale right.



When I thought it looked good I traced them onto the dresser. After that I just got to work mixing colours with my acrylic paints and painting in the flowers. I tried my best to match the colours exactly to bedding.






I love the way it turned out! I'm bringing it back to her this weekend, I can't wait for her to see it. I hope she loves it!

These ladies really know how to party!

White Waterfall

I saw this dresser at Goodwill and thought the shape was so sweet but it needed a makeover.



It's in such good shape that all it needed was a quick sand before priming and painting. After it was all painted, I wanted to add something to the front like I usually do. But I couldn't decide what to do. I knew this was a girls dresser so I thought of birds or butterflies or flowers but nothing seemed right. I don't think the front of the dresser is the right shape for a painting on the front.



So instead, for some uniqueness, I added a pretty pink damask paper to the insides of the drawers and painted little numbers on the back of the drawers.





This is my first project without my sprayer in a looooong time. To be honest, it was a bit of a struggle for me. The sprayer has spoiled me; it's so quick, it only needs one coat and it's dry in half an hour. I'll definitely have to get used to painting with a brush and a roller again.




Linking with:
Piece of Work Wednesday at Primitive & Proper