Old furniture gets a new look!

I have been feeling like my house needs a face lift lately. Being a stay at home mom I try to save where we can so I got creative. We bought an older home that needed a lot of work so we painted our whole house (literally...even the ceilings). Needless to say we have a lot of indoor paint leftover. We have been handed down some older unwanted furniture. They weren't exactly our style so I spruced them up a bit. Here they are....

I carried everything into the garage and went to work. Carefully I removed any hardware and gave them a good scrub down.  Then proceeded to sand the heck out of them. Luckily we have an electric sander...it really helped me out.

Once they were all sanded I gave them one final clean and then a couple coats of paint. Now I should have used primer here but we were fresh out. I was trying to use only the things we had on hand. It worked just with an extra coat or two. I also spray painted the old brass handle for the drawer.

And Viola! It is amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do. This is now in our dining room. I am still playing around with the pretties on top of the little stand but I think it has found it's home...for now ;) I filled the open cubby of books for the boys to give them something to do while waiting for dinner. I also utilized the drawer for printer and photo paper. I really love this piece now. The paint on this is Gentle Rain by Behr. There are 2 rooms in my house this color and I can't tell you how calming this color is. I love it!

This next piece is just a small bookshelf that will most likely hold some of my fabric in my sewing room. It will be bare for a little while until I finish redoing the sewing room. I don't know why but lately I feel like overhauling my whole house. And it feels good to see progress. This color is a color I used in the nursery for the sky on the Dr. Seuss walls it is called... Blue Marine by Glidden. My sewing room colors are different shades of blue, turquoise, and a plum purpley color. I was walking in target and saw a pillowcase on clearance that spoke to me. Those were all the colors in the pillow case.

So the next time you come across an unattractive piece of furniture in your home give it a second thought before tossing it out. You never know it could be a real gem. ;)