Up-cycling Addict

Over the summer I took on the task of refinishing some furniture for my SIL.

 It all started when my mom bought a tall, solid wood dresser from a yard sale for ten bucks. It was in pretty rough shape but I saw the potential and offered to refinish it.

I wish I had a before picture. 

I always get so carried away with the projects that I forget. 

Any way, it had been spray painted black, it was beat up (all the dings filled in with putty), only two of the drawers had holes drilled in for handles, and the sides ended up being particle board. Good times!

I started by striping the whole thing then sanding it down.

I convinced my niece and nephew to help... Mwahhahaha!

After stripping the dresser I dug out all the putty from the dents. 

Putty doesn't stain and I wanted to stain this piece. 

After digging out all the putty, I beat the crap out of the dresser with a big chain, a sock full of bolts and a crow bar. 

So much fun! 

I then, with the help of Rylie, stained it with a beautiful dark walnut that I have had sitting around the house. 

 Now, as I said before, the sides were particle board and I couldn't just stain them, so I covered them in fabric. My mom actually gave me the idea by saying we should put wallpaper on them. Well, it turns out that pirate wallpaper is expensive and hard to find and since the theme of the nursery was pirates I really wanted to either stick with that or maps. 

I just wasn't having much luck in the wallpaper department so I turned to fabric. I found just what I wanted and pulled out  my dear old friend mod podge. Hurrah for mod podge!

It turned out amazing! I think it is one of my favorite pieces I've done so far.

Now, after that dresser turned out so well, I couldn't just leave the old white changing table from my infancy alone. I had to match it. So I striped that and sanded it as well. It had some heavy paint layers in some pretty awesome colors... Like guacamole green. 

Unfortunately for me, the dresser was barely wood. The sides and top were made out of some strange material that took forever to strip and didn't want to stain. I ended up spray painting them an espresso brown then glazing over them with the dark walnut to match the front and the drawers. 

It gave me a bit of a challenge but it turned out fine in the end.

As usual I forgot to get a before picture BUT like I said this changing table was used for both myself and my brother. So......I did one better. I found an original picture of the changing table...in my brothers baby book!! :-D

This was the front, flowers and all. Look at those chunky legs on my brother. BAH!

Here, if you can look past the awesome wallpaper and fabulous glasses my mom is wearing, you can see the top of the table. I'm sorry that I don't have a full picture of it but you get the idea. 

AFTER: