Dresser Makeover

Favorite. Project. To. Date.  Those periods just seem to emphasize my excitement to share this with you. 
Dresser story:
We were on our way to piano lessons about a month ago and we spotted a yard sale right along the way.  We stopped afterwards and I found not only this dresser, but a headboard, night stand and little chair for a grand total of....drum roll please...$35. Yes, you read that correctly.  TOTAL.  I probably would not have looked twice at this a year ago, but what with pinterest and all, the wheels were spinning.  Wish I had some original pictures.  This is what it looked like after a couple days of stripping the five hundred layers of paint off of it.

It has great detail and I like the little wheeled legs.  I was going to paint it all, but a dear retired friend of ours happened to stop by as I was stripping it and he said "its a shame people just cover that nice wood up with paint." Great...now I have guilt!  :)  He is a wonderful wood worker as is my grandpa.  I came up with a compromise and actually became quite excited about it.  Wood on the top, paint on the bottom!  Its a win, win.  The children have a mother because I won't be in the garage for the next 5 years trying to get paint out of those crevices AND I can still have my dear retired friends in our home without feeling guilty!  I'm joking of course. ;)
It was hard enough getting the paint completely off the top. 

Just me and my octo-sander...that thing is the bomb.

Bareness!

 

 

 

 It was SO easy to stain the top...I did a dark walnut colored stain and some knobs at Hobby Lobby:

It matches the dining set perfectly!

Swingset Staining

Did I really miss ALL of May?!?!  Ugh.  I failed at my streak of posting once a month.  Here is a quick post about a project that has been on my mind ALL of May: The Swingset.  Every time I'd look out our back door I'd have a conversation in my head that went like this, "that would probably only take me 45 minutes to do, I have to buy stain the next time I'm in town."  Do you want to know how many times I'd forget to pick up stain??  I have come to realize that I am useless without a list.  My brain can only keep track of so much and so far keeping track of four kids seems to be my limit.  Thankfully I haven't left anyone at the hardware store (knock on wood).  I suppose this is success in my world.
I found this new version of stain at our little hardware store:

It. Was. Awesome.  It is really thick - almost like kids finger paint and it went on really well.  I highly recommend it.  I also liked that it came with its own little sponge/applicator...I am easily sold.  One less thing to have to track down.  It only cost $11 - not too shabby for a good sprucing up:

I really wish I had a "before", but I had two babies to get napping and time was of the essence!
It felt very good to cross this project off my To Do List.
*Update, I just found a before picture from Mother's Day and the guys were playing our favorite yard game "Kan Jam" (that could be a whole different post!). ;)  If you can see past Ben getting ready to make his killer shot, the swingset was pretty faded!