More Before & Afters

So we are starting the countdown of days past my due date. I was due yesterday, June 10th. Booooo. No baby yet, and I don't feel like a whole lot is happening, so I might as well catch up on my project blogging, and maybe my projects. My mom got in on Thursday night and we have loved having her here already. I wish today was sunny so we could go to the lake, but it is gloomy and bleh. So instead, I think we will tackle my craft area and maybe one more big project. We shall see. I keep hoping contractions will derail my plans. So here are a few more big and small projects I've finished in the last few weeks. The first is just a boring tray I picked up at the thrift store.

Before

After
Once again, please excuse my super awesome photography skills.

Boring old side table before.

And still pretty boring side table after. This was a super-quick spray painting job that looks almost as bad in person as it does in the photo. Basically I had left over spray paint and thought that the patchy black would look better than the ugly fake wood veneer. It does.

And here is the dresser I got at a super fun store called Dicker & Deal. Everything there is priced to be bargained down, however the dresser was marked at $8.99, so how low are you supposed to go? I didn't know you were even expected to bargain so I didn't say a word and the guy sold it to me for $7.44. Woo hoo!

One of the drawers didn't close correctly, it was pretty dinged up and as I found when I got it home, it smelled very strongly of men's cologne. I figured out the problem with the drawer closing, I got rid of the smell and refinished the whole thing. I tried to strip the brass to get a silver finish ala this tutorial, but the hardware pieces are solid brass, not plated and couldn't be stripped. Duh. The process tarnished them pretty well though, so I also had to spend a bit of time using my silver polish to clean them up. Sadly, we also had to lose the sweet Spiderman sticker.

Here is Eleanor during the "baking soda to get rid of the smell" treatment. I ended up using an odor-blocking primer inside the drawers to make sure that our baby boy doesn't smell like a member of Jersey Shore.

And here is after! It's set up in the closet in Eleanor's room, thus the dresses hanging on top. I forgot to take a proper "after" shot while it was still downstairs. For the color, I used some left over paint from the downstairs foyer makeover which was pretty close to the original and I'm pretty happy with the results. I love blue.

And here is an open drawer, clean, odor free and lined with shelf paper. One big project DONE!

Do I dare? This is my next project. My neighbor Ruth gave me for this for free and it became my sewing desk. I want to paint it bright green like this or this. Fun huh. We'll see how motivated I feel today. Although, this picture made me appreciate the desk's natural awesomeness.
Do you see what I see?

Hilarious, yes?