Before and Afters: side table and step stool

I have a long list of goals for this week and am making pretty good progress so far. After coming home with a truckload of furniture from the huge yard sale last weekend, I kind of need to get some projects completed to keep my garage from being overrun by tables and chairs. Over the next couple of days I hope to be able to share some "before and after" photos with you as I get things finished. Here are a couple to get us started.

I posted a photo of this little table a few weeks ago when I brought it home from a yard sale. Pretty cute, but kinda dated. I loved those chunky legs and the extra large screw buttons were just adorable.

What I really wanted to do was strip the finish off the top, stain it, and paint the legs. But once I got the top completely stripped...

... I realized that the whole table top was not all wood.
I tried staining the whole thing anyway, but as expected, the fake stuff didn't accept the stain the same as the real wood, so it looked weird. Then during a conversation with a friend about my dilemma, she suggested that I paint the fake part black and leave the real wood stained. Brilliant! So I tried it. Here's how it turned out.

What do you think? Is it too much? My husband said he thinks there's too much going on here.

But I just couldn't bear to paint over those adorable over sized circles on the top, and the multi-directional wood grain is pretty, too.

The legs got a couple of coats of my trusty "Heirloom White" then antiqued with black glaze, the faux drawer got a new pull (Hobby Lobby), and the edge of the top was painted in just regular black semi-gloss house paint.



Honestly, I'm not completely convinced that I like the top, but I guess I'll leave it as is and see if it sells.

The next item I want to show you was just a plain old wooden step stool that I picked up at a thrift store for about 4 bucks. It was dusty, but other than that there was nothing at all wrong with it.

Even with just a coat of primer it already looks better!

This little guy might just be staying at my house. My kids are always dragging chairs around the kitchen to stand on, so this could be really handy. And there's that robin's egg blue that I adore!

I distressed it quite a bit and let some of the white primer show through, then rubbed the edges with walnut stain to darken the exposed wood and give it a little more age.

Well, that's it for today. There's definitely more coming, though, so check back soon!