Hallway nook

Work on the guest bath hallway nook continues.  I've put up shelves, started painting and started a piece of abstract art:

I found this small Drexel dresser on Craigslist for $50:

I liked the bones--it makes me think of a campaign-style piece and the price was right.

I cleaned, stripped, sanded, primed and painted it over a period of several weeks.  This morning, I finally put the hardware on it.  Here's what it looks like now:

Now I need to decide what kind of shelves to build over it.  I'm thinking of spacing them 18" or 24" apart.  Not sure yet if they should go the entire width of the niche, or if they should be the same width of the dresser.  Eventually the whole area there will be painted yellow.  I'm thinking gold brackets and hunter green open shelves.  The paint is Rustoleum hunter green, applied with a brush.

Here's our new living room coffee table.  I'll post the whole story later, but here's the photo of the finished product:

Two-color empire buffet

We've had this old plank and veneer buffet for a few years and never go around to refinishing it.  It has hung out in our family room although it has been too small for the space it is in:

A couple of weeks ago I started pinning examples of furniture that is partly refinished wood and partly painted.  The top of the piece was a couple of layers of veneer and pretty beat up.  I decided the top wasn't worth trying to save.  I chipped off as much as I could and glued down a piece of 1/4" plywood my son cut to size with the jigsaw.  I also ordered these knobs from an eBay seller:

I spray-painted the pulls with Rustoleum Gold paint.  The paint is "Gentleman's Gray" by Benjamin Moore.  The doors and drawers are stained "Jacobean" and protected with oil-based polyurethane:

Here's the finished product:

I don't have a good place for this in the house, so it will go in the foyer of the guest house.

Conch shell lamp

This was $16.99 at Metrocrest Social Services thrift store. Isn't it awesome?

Bubble Gum Pink Dresser

Cha Cha's old dresser would fall apart when you opened the drawers, so a couple of weeks ago, I picked this up from a lady who trolls storage locker auctions:

It was in really good shape, although I did eventually wind up having to replace the hardware.  Other than replacing the hardware and having to hack replacement drawer slides for three of the drawers, it was a sound piece.  The only thing I would really change is that the drawers are not dovetailed.

I sanded the whole thing down, primed it and painted it bubble gum pink.  This was an oil-based paint from Behr that was left over from the repainting of her bunk beds.  The top I stained with a couple of coats of "Jacobean" stain--my favorite stain color.  The top has a pretty nice grain considering the fact that it was never an expensive piece to begin with.  Here it is in process:

The last pic is the hardware I purchased from an eBay store and spray painted bronze to more closely match the dark color of the top of the dresser.

Here's my girl, enjoying her new dresser!

And here's the triple mirror from CCA I bought a few weeks ago and painted pink to go with the dresser.  This will go over the dresser:

$10 shelves

We've been living in our house for more than a year now and we still have tons of photos to display.  In addition, I have cookbooks I am constantly having to dig out of the pantry, where they were kept.

I found these very easy plans for small shelves from Knock Off Furniture.  These are the famous $10 shelves.  Here they are in the family room:

And in the kitchen:

It looks nice and tidy now.  These shelves were very easy to make.  The fronts were tacked on with my nail gun.