More furniture ... Before and After

I have been dreading the start back to school.  Ugh!  Early mornings.  Fighting with the boys over breakfast.   Dealing with tired kids in the afternoon.  And entertaining the girls all by myself.  Could the summer months have already passed?  Did this used to be my life?  

And then the first day,

 and week...

But what's this?  The house?  Spotless and orderly.  The girls?  Perfectly polite and interacting with each other happily.  The boys get up and ready basically by themselves.  The girls wake after they are well on their way to school and we settle into slow, quite days.  

So I have had some time to do fun things like have tea parties, lounge with the girls in my big white bed and tackle some of the furniture in the garage.  You already saw victim number one.  Here is number two.

The top isn't even real wood and did not cooperate when sanding.  Originally I wanted the top to be dark stained wood but that was out of the question.

So after two coats of off white paint I had this...

And after distressing and a coat of brown stain, I now have this...

The bottom handles were on the original.  The top four were pulled off some other furniture.  They were gold (of course) so I spray painted them with some cream paint and when they were dry I rubbed them with stain too.  Ahhh... much better!  

I adore how painting, distressing and staining reveal details that were lost on the original finish.  These little squares cut out under the top were completely invisible when it was just boring brown but now its a great eye-catching detail.

But again with the garage finish?  Let me see if I can fix that...

This  painted dresser finds a new home in a small odd spot in the corner of the living room that was until recently occupied by multiple pairs and sizes of mud boots.  Yes, mud boots in the living room.  I think this looks much better.

Hope I can keep it up with the furniture painting and get the garage empty enough to park our vehicles in it before the snow comes.  My mind is busy matching pieces and paint colors.  It is keeping me up at night and waking me in the morning.  I think that is a good thing, don't you?