Revives by Rachel

After we got back from vacation, which was amazing!  It was so fun to spend time with my whole family.  It is crazy how much fun we have together-definitely adult 'festive' fun-if you catch my drift.

Anyway, when we got back I was on the warpath to find a chest of drawers, dresser and matching mirror to refinish for our bedroom.  See, last year, for my birthday Brad promised me bedroom furniture.  Well, here we are almost a year later and that present never seemed to materialize...so I took it upon myself.  First of all, I am not a fan of bedroom sets where everything matches, which was part of the reason we never got any.  To me, it just looks too 'done' and boring-no offense if your furniture matches like this.  So, after getting insprired by HGTV, DIY blogs, and a test run when we refinished Emily's, I decided that I could buy ugly furniture and refinish it into something B-E-A-utiful.

There is not a thrift store or goodwill that I did not go to in Knoxville.  I looked for days and days.  Just when I was about to give up, I decided to stop by the local goodwill close to our house.  It is a smaller location, in a shopping plaza, so I was not expecting to find anything at all.  I walked in and the first thing I saw were these bad boys...And they were PERFECT!  I loved the shape, that it had all 3 parts, and that it was only $99.99!  So I bought all of them right there.

Once I got these home, which took a few trips, I went to Lowes and bought a palm sander, a cabinet roller, paint brush, and paint.  I already had the primer at home, so I was good to go.  After getting them home and cleaning them, I took off all the hardware and put them aside.  Then I sanded all of them, so that the primer and paint would stick.  After they were lightly sanded, I primed them, then painted them after it dried.  Here is an action shot...

After I painted, I took the existing hardware-because I liked the feminine detialing on them-and just spray painted them with a bronze hammered finish.  So, here is the final product, minus the mirror attached to the dresser-gotta get the drill out for that and we have been just a tad busy.

Once I get my camera out and get around to taking better pictures...I'll take some with the mirror attached and of the whole room.  So, all in all this cost me around $120 and two days of my time.  What do you think?  I think I'm going to open a store called "Revives by Rachel" because I actually enjoyed doing this.  It was relaxing to me, and made me feel like I had accomplished something.  Who needs to go out and buy expensive matchy match furniture when you can reuse old pieces and make them your own!