Friday, January 25, 2013

For the Love of Baby..



I have this amazing girlfriend who is a total fashionista. She manages a very posh hair salon in town, always looks amazing and is one of those people who can create a smashing ensemble out of a t-shirt and jeans.  She knows the key to accessorizing and she's a hair and make up genius!  That being said she will be the first to tell you "crafting" isn't her thing.   She can make a mean greeting card but that is where it ends.  No scrapbooking...sewing...or furniture repurposing!  

This friend....let's call her "Diamond Girl" found out she was going to be a Mom for the second time...at almost 40...after 10 years of trying...after mentally getting herself in a good place thinking she was to be the parent of just one child (but a truly amazing one child!)  Needless to say, I was just over the moon for her!   A BABY!  And...to top it off it was a girl-child!  If ANYONE on the planet needed a girl-child to dress up it was Diamond Girl!  Oh joy!

I wanted to do something wonderful for my friend and her new Miracle Girl Baby but I wasn't sure what...then she called.  I think the conversation went a little something like...

Diamond Girl:  "Can I come over and show you the bedding?  Will you help me pick the paint?"
Me:  "Absolutely!  I can't wait!
Diamond Girl:  "I don't know what to do about baby furniture.  I don't want to buy a changing table or anything brand new...it's too expensive. I've been looking at painted pieces online but they are way too expensive!"
Me:  "So let's hit the garage sales and we'll paint it ourselves!"
Diamond Girl:  "I don't do that."
Me: "I do!"

I had an idea....(ugh!)... and usually that calls for me driving around like a crazy person looking for something that only exists in my head. 

I convinced Diamond Girl that the spring Garage Sales they have in our town was the answer.  I would drive around and look for the perfect pieces and send her photos.  She would let me know when I found the perfect pieces.

So, I did what I do every year during our town's garage sale extravaganza...I got some coffee, got in my family roadster and started hunting.  Many pictures were taken...lots of possibilities but in the end nothing.  I'd spent a few hours driving around with my sister looking for just the right pieces.  We had found 2 great night stands for ourselves but that's where it ended.  I called Diamond Girl to let her know the day was a bust when my sister insisted I turn on the culdusac down the street from my house.  WHY?  There is no way...oops...wait...what is that?  What is sitting on a driveway literally 6 houses from my own?  THE PERFECT PIECES!  I couldn't believe it!  I was on the phone with Diamond Girl at the time and I think my words went something like...
"Hold on..oh my gosh...do you know the ****** family?  Well, I think they have your pieces on their driveway.  They do!  And...they're (drum roll please....) TEN DOLLARS EACH!!!"

I couldn't believe I'd driven around our town for hours scouting out potential pieces when the perfect baby furniture was sitting on a drive way literally around the corner from my house!  They were sturdy 1970's pieces that were crying for a make over.  The male owner of the pieces said that they were pieces to his bedroom furniture.  I seriously was so excited I think I was screeching!  (Insert high pitched voice here!)

Without further ado...here are the pieces I recreated for the Miracle Girl Baby!







I took off the hardware before I snapped a photo (Bad Blogger!)


Diamond Girl picked a great Arctic Blue color from Home Depot...after your typical sanding and wiping, I painted 3 coats (we got the paint with the primer already included...loved how it worked!)

Once the paint dried I distressed the edges just enough so that Miracle Girl Baby could ding it with a hair brush and the ding would blend right in!


After much discussion about the hardware I chose to spray paint the original pulls with basic white spray paint and distress them.  They turned out beautiful!  for the top pulls I found the perfect matching knobs at Hobby Lobby...white painted metal flowers that were a bit distressed.  (We had to replace the top knobs because a few were MIA)  Obviously, not a deal breaker.



I hope this is what Diamond Girl had in mind when she commissioned me to do these pieces.  It was $20 for the dressers (the shorter of the two became the changing table...so posh!) plus the cost of a gallon of paint and the rollers.  This was a labor of love (ha...perfect word choice!) and I finished before sweet Miracle Girl Baby made her appearance.  

Have you ever tried painting furniture?  It'd love to hear about it!  Leave me a comment.  Or...send me a link to your blog post and share!  Thanks!