End table makeover and Vacation Inspirations

This may be a long post, so bare with me.

Alright, it's been awhile since my last post. I was away last week on vacation in Lake Michigan where I got some major inspiration! Rocks on the seashore, shabby furniture on the beach, and driftwood laying all over! It was paradise. Here are a few inspiration shots I snapped:




Yes, that is a huge log of driftwood you see! I wanted so badly to take it with me, but it would have been impossible to get home. I did pick up some other peices of driftwood though. Here are some incredibly-less-artistic shots of those:


Aren't they amazing?! Haven't decided exactly what to do with them yet, but I'm really excited to use them.

Alright, now on the the main event.

This side table has been sitting in the guest room for awhile now:

I haven't done anything with it, because there wasn't really any room for it in the house, but after coming home from vacation and not having done anything creative for 4 whole days, I just couldn't wait to get my hands on a piece of furniture, so the one above got redone, even though I don't really have room for it. (I will make room :D )

Here is the after:


I'm really pleased with how it came out. I had some troubles along the way, but it all panned out in the end!

Here is a shot of it in-process:


Originally I sanded the top, stained it walnut, and then washed over it with gray paint. It ended up having an almost pinkish finish, which I didn't like, so I stained over the wash with the walnut which made it look LOADS better, but I still wasn't happy with it. I decided that because of the shape of the piece (the bottom has a piece that's the same width as the top) a wood top threw off the balance, so I just sanded it back down and painted over it. After that I decided to wash some white paint over the whole thing, which gave the piece more interest. Then I just distressed away with my electric sander and a 320 grade sandpaper.



Don't you love this knob? I took it off a beat up, old dresser we had sitting in our basement. I think it has a very anthropologie feel to it.





The color is a bit hard to decipher from these pictures. For some reason my camera kept capturing it all different ways. It's actually a light robin's egg blue which I mixed myself using a variety of old paints.



The above is probably the most accurate to the actual color.

Also, I thought I'd show off the picture frame I recently re-did which is sitting on the end table in the above pictures. Here are some close ups:


I'm really thrilled with how this frame came out. I forgot to take a before picture (doh!) but it did have a nasty gold finish, pink matting and a grandma-ish flower picture. I sanded it down, and then washed it with white paint. I think all the little details are awesome, and the washing really made them stand out.

Alright, I'm finally at the end now, even though I have several other projects I could share with you. :P To quote Father Christmas from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe "Things do pile up, when you've been gone a hundred years" (or one week, in my case) Thank you all so much for reading!

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