Disaster! and Other Less Melodramatic Stuff

Remember my crazy plan to do leopard print curtains for the living area?  Well, I finally got enough spare change scraped together to buy 21 more yards (after already buying 3 earlier as a tester) only to discover...

(cue dramatic music)
dun dun dun!

... it sold out!  After much hair pulling and internet searching, I finally found another source, but it was almost double the price, so with that I scrapped my plans for crazy leopard curtains and decided to go with the great blog standby - painter's dropcloth curtains!  I know, they're kind of the opposite spectrum from leopard print curtains, but I've waited a year to put curtains up and it was starting to drive me insane.  I'm not completely crazy about the color in comparison to my walls (which I'm not supposed to paint since I'm a renter).  I am thinking of painting them with a stencil, but I haven't decided quite yet.  I'm definitely still going for the wide black trim inspired by Dwellers without Decorators:

 

In other news, we're taking a trip to the beach this weekend.  It's going to be a very quick trip, but I'm hoping to get in at least a few hours of quality lounge/tanning time (just enough to banish the pasty white off my winter legs).  I might even bring a book.

Have a good weekend!

Vivian and Knox a.k.a. A Tale of Two Nightstands

The pair of nightstands I've been plugging away at were finally finished this weekend.  It was a long week - lots of sanding, wood filling, painting, and waiting for things to properly dry.  The good news is that I do like them a lot, although they didn't exactly turn out as I hoped.

Here's the before...

And the after...


Meet Vivian and Knox (get it?)

Remember my plan to try and keep the doors by turning them around?  Well, that didn't work because the doors were slightly beveled on the inside so they left a gap when I turned them around.  So I went with Plan B - leaving the bottom open.  I worried it would be too cavernous, but once I put some books in there, I think it looks good.



Sorry about the crooked shot, our good computer with the editing software is being worked on.

 I polished up the brass hardware with some Brasso. 


I think the color looks great, but I'm not super happy with the "gloss" finish.  I wanted them so shiny they looked wet, but using the flat paint process didn't give me that.  I've had more success using oil-based gloss paint, like this project.  I might decide to put some high gloss poly on them if they make it in the wipe-on version.  (They already have a coat of wipe-on satin finish poly underneath the spray gloss topcoat.)  However, the more likely scenario is that once they are done curing in the dining room, they will get moved into the bedroom, cluttered up, and I'll end up keeping them as-is.  And I'm okay with that - I'm ready to cross this project off the to-do list for good.

Cost (in nice round numbers):
$60 - nightstands (on Craigslist)
   7   - quart of primer
   5   - gallon of green paint (OOPS paint)
 10   - 2 cans of clear gloss lacquer spray paint
   6   - 2 1x3x8 whitewood lumber (for base)
 15   - brushes, rollers, and miscellany, some of which I had on hand (estimation)
$103

Not too shabby for one-of-a-kind, statement-making nightstands. 

See the other steps: inspiration, buying and adding new bases and prepping for paint.