My New Hobby!

Hello again, friends!

So I've acquired a new hobby. Sitting in our garage were two very plan looking peices of furniture. One was a 4-drawer dresser and the other is a 3-drawer bed side table. As were were setting up one of our spare bedrooms for the arrival of one of my very best friends who will be coming out for a visit next week, remembered those poor, neglected pieces in the garage. Of course they didn't match the decor in the room (it's kind of a beach-side feel) and while they look like they could be from the same set, the bed side table was painted a SUPER dark hunter green and the dresser had a splotchy cherry stain on it that made it look worse than it really was. Enter new hobby.

The desired effect

I decided in my brain that I was going to fix these up. I had a specific look that I wanted because I figured it would fit into my awesome oceanic theme. I wanted a white, cracked paint finish on both of these pieces. Now, I could go over to Potter Barn and pay over $1000 for the same thing, or I could do it myself. And gosh darnit, I was going to do it myself.

So, I decided that I would sand them down, and figure out how to do the crackle finish. Chad was sweet enough to save me literally hours upon hours of hard sanding by buying me the sander I had been lusting after, which made this process MUCH easier. As we stand right now, the night stand is sanded and ready to go, and we still have a side of the dresser to finish before it's ready. Even with the automatic sander, it still take a really long time to make sure everything is prepped and ready for the paint.

Now, I haven't purchased the paint yet. I'm trying to finish one step at a time before jumping into a new one. I know all of the materials I need and I'm looking online to find some really neat hardware to help finish off the antique beach look. So far, I'm sort  of loving these:

I also found some online that were in the shapes of crabs, mermaids and sea horses. Of course all of these cost a pretty penny and I'm trying to save money here, so we'll see what I end up going with in the end.

So there you have it! My plan is to eventually sand and re-finish our dining table, chairs and little bookshelf too. I love doing things like this, and I'm really excited to keep you all up to date with the progress!