Goad Adventures: home projects

Some of you may have been wondering what has happened to us.  Maybe you are worried that we seem to have a lack of adventures these days.  I am here to assure you that just isn't the case.  While it is true, our travels are much less than they used to be (shoot, we have stayed in the same country for almost a year), we are still having little adventures mostly of the home improvement variety.  One thing (besides a fireplace, garage and backyard) that Tyler and I missed the most while we lived in Germany was the space and ability to complete projects.  Both of us grew up helping our family paint, refinish, and build furniture. I (Kristin) varnished my first piece of furniture at the ripe old age of 12. So after a long three years of buying furniture in Europe that we could "fix" we have finally had the time, space, and hardware stores to make it happen.  

Below is the beat up British dresser we purchased in Belgium.  We had high hopes for this guy.  We stripped off the old varnish and sanded him down only to realize that he had some really big problems.  The veneer was chipped and and damaged in lots and lots of places.  No amount of wood filler was going to make him look better, so we decided to paint.  We saw this dresser online many months ago and fell in love. So we rather ambitiously decided, "Hey we can do that!" So after many months of work I am ready to unveil the before and almost finished photos. 

BEFORE: 

 ALMOST FINISHED:  

We still need to wax (seal) and distress the dresser base (which is why the feet look lighter blue) and add hardware.  We are super pleased with the project so far and hope to have finished pictures by the end of the week!

We also refinished this cute little table, which was another Belgian find.   We didn't change much, but it shined up nicely.

BEFORE: 

AFTER:

  When we got married we ended up with quite a lot of hand-me-down furniture, which was perfect because we didn't have much.  After a while we grew to appreciate the great functionalitity of having solid non-heirloom furniture to move around with, but the color/hardware just wasn't our thing.  So we painted our two bedroom dressers, nightstands (not pictured) and a cabinet piece. Unfortunately, I don't have fantastic before pictures, but you can at least see the before color.

 BEFORE: 

 AFTER: 

BEFORE:

AFTER: 

I left the best make over for last! This is another hand-me-down that we revamped. The first picture is from two houses ago, but shows the entire piece of furniture.  We removed the top and the shutter like doors, then built a new shelf for the bottom. 

BEFORE: 

 AFTER:  

 I envision baskets/bins of some sort on the shelves - sort of like the ones I set up below.

  Our next project: