It's Only Paint

I would love to say that this is the "before" picture; of  a little desk I found on Craigs List.

The truth is that the baby pink interior is  the "before". The exterior was bright gloss white, with plenty of red marker and pen stains. They let me have it for $30 because of the stains and the fact that one of the fold down hinges was broken and had carved up some of the interior.

I had thought I might do a dark green with a fern white pattern across the front. I tried CeCe Caldwell's Michigan Pine.

Original Barbie pink interior. This had obviously been a little girl's  desk or vanity in it's previous life. 

It did not take me long to decide that this was not the "after" I was after.

I tried Behr's Prairie Sage next. Better, but still not quite what I was going for.

Next I gave it a coat of Behr's Safari Green; I went over that with a very light white wash in a criss-cross pattern , this gave it an almost fabric feel. The top got a white wash to give the feel of weathered wood.- Ok,  now we were getting somewhere...

The decoupage papers are Martha Stewart's, and I did the interior with Behr Gray Morning (my go to color- very duck egg blue). I lined the interior with an aqua contact paper.

So all in all I gave this piece no less than 4 different coats of paint before I got it to where I was satisfied. Never be afraid to paint, if you don't like it you can always paint over it,

After all "it's only paint".

Flower Dresser

 I  (and by I- I mean my husband,  who is the muscles of the operation) picked up a set of two dressers I found listed on Craigs List for $45 for the pair.
These poor babies had obviously been through a lot. I kept thinking of them as the furniture equivalent of  Katrina Cars.

I had been wanting to try a version of a dresser I had seen on Pinterest. 

After much cleaning, wood putty, and sanding I gave her a quick coat of Zinsser Primer (which did an awesome job of blocking the ink stains and burns on the top).

Then gave her 2 coats of Behr Gray Morning.

The fabric is 

Waverly Somerset Botanical Sun N Shade Fabric in Mist

And yes, I cut each flower out individually with my little sewing scissors.

Several people who reclaim/ refurbish furniture seem to have gotten into the habit of naming their pieces. Makes sense to me, new life, new name. What do you think her name should be? Rose? Lily? Petunia?