And here it is!

Well, one of them anyway. I'm super happy with how this turned out. I may have mentioned before that I was inspired by a table I had pinned on Pinterest. I wanted to do a gender neutral dresser because the first one was soooo girly and the next one will be feminine but more grown up. I didn't want to pigeonhole myself into a girls only corner. This is where I got my inspiration from. And now, here it is!

This is obviously the before and so sorry about missing drawers. I had already started sanding the top when I realized I hadn't taken a before picture.

And a few in betweens. The wood is so beautiful! I was so glad I'd already decided to stain it!

 And finally the after! I stained it in Ebony and then alternated the drawer with Sunbleached. The hardware is all in Oil Rubbed Bronze.

And there it is. It feels modern but also a bit nautical. I love it and my husband does, too. He actually said, "This one is going to be a bit hard to part with, huh?" :)

Oh, and check out my Facebook page I set up for selling my furniture. I don't know how to do those linky link things yet but here's the web address. https://www.facebook.com/ThePaintedCottageSC

Half way there

I spent 5 hours today on one of the dressers I'll hopefully be finishing by Wednesday. It's a tall one with five drawers. I decided to go masculine with this one. I spent and eternity sanding but I think there is a mojo to it because it seemed to go a little faster towards the end. Anyway, I was able to stain it, although I was doing it by twilight. I moved it to the driveway because there was too much dust in the garage so I took it outside and wiped it down and stained it there. Once I'd wiped off the excess stain I moved it back inside the garage to a less dusty area to rest. From what I could tell in the dim, yellow light of the garage it looks great! I may need to do a second coat to the very top of the dresser and I still need to paint the hardware or possibly replace. I haven't decided since only one of the pieces is broken. I may just make the top two knobs different than the rest. I think I have some bronze paint left so that they'll all match.

The shorter dresser is finally stripped. I had to do some touching up today. I'll start sanding it tomorrow and HOPEFULLY get started painting it. Wednesday I'll finish it up if I haven't and apply a few coats of polycrylic to the tall dresser. Last but not least, I need to find some paper to put in the bottom of the drawers to cover up old stains and whatnot and then they'll be ready to sell!

I'm really looking forward to showing these off. My first dresser was WAY girly so I want to show that I can do a more grown up feminine dresser and even do well at a man's dresser. I'm excited for the reveal! It should be no later than Thursday! See you then!

Refinishing furniture!

So I've stumbled across this awesome thing called "refinishing furniture". I've only done one piece so far but I am thrilled with the results and about nine days after setting it up for sale it's sold to a wonderful lady who will be giving it to her daughter. I'm so happy for them. It's going to look great in her room from what she described.

Here are my befores and afters. I found it one Craigslist. It was dirty, had stickers all over it and was missing some of the knobs with the ones it had being mismatched and cheap. I felt like the lines were feminine and I had a stencil I'd been dying to try. I mixed up some paint to create a new color and bought some knobs then went to work!

I'm pleased and I know the little girl is going to love it!