Blog Swap with Thrifty Decorating

{Goodwill Re-do}

Hi Everyone! I'm Nikki from Thrifty Decorating and I'm so excited to be blogging at Dandelions and Dust Bunnies today! Kathy's blog was one of the very first that I found about 6 months ago when I ventured into the land of decorating blogs and I just love all the projects that she does!

Today I want to share with you how I took a $3.00 Goodwill purchase......

and turned it into this.....

(that's not actually it's REAL home....it's REAL home was too messy to show!)

I first need to confess that I absolutely L*O*V*E spraypaint! It it quick, easy and cheap!

My other confession is that I am terribly impatient! And I tried to first spray this stand when it was about 20 degrees outside! We have an insulated garage, but still......it was nowhere near the "recommended" minimum temperature of 55 degrees! So.....I ended up with this....

I'm not sure if you can see, but it bubbled.....badly.....like the surface of the moon bad! So I hid it in a corner of the garage and sulked.....convinced that I had ruined it....

Well, my hubby was getting slightly annoyed about the fact that he'd have to do a daily hurdle over it to get to his car, so I needed a plan B......and that came in the form of a 60 degree day in the middle of February in Pennsylvania!! So I hauled out some sandpaper and another can of Rustoleum Blossom White spraypaint....

And guess what......it worked!!!

The next part was scary.....I needed to distress it. Distressing a piece of furniture that I just spent time spraying always makes me very nervous.....what if I chip off too much paint???

I started with this much....I just took a piece of sandpaper and followed all of the edges. Since the piece was kind've ugly to start with, I decided to heavily distress it....

After distressing it, I took some glaze to age it. Unfortunately, I don't know what my glaze is made from. I borrowed some from my mom in an old coffee can and have been using it for 5 months! You can buy glaze at Home Depot or Lowe's and ask them to tint it.....

The glaze that I used was tinted more on the brown side than the black side, but you can see how it just brings life and depth to the piece......I just took an old T-shirt and put some glaze on it and rubbed. Another trick I use to get the right look is the dampen the rag with water...that thins the glaze and makes it easier to rub around. I just try to go with the grain of the wood and apply it heavy to the areas that I distressed.

Now for that print in the drawer! Clean out the inside of your drawer.....

Grab some scrapbook paper, a brush and some Mod Podge....


......and brush a layer of mod podge directly to your drawer, set your scrapbook paper in the drawer and brush another layer of mod podge on the top of your paper....

Reinsert your drawer and you've got a beautiful, custom piece that cost all of $7.00!!

Material's Cost:
Goodwill Nightstand: $3.00
1 can White spray primer: $4.00 (but only count $2.00 because I used 1/2 can!)
1 can Rustoleum Blossom White spraypaint: $4.00 (but only count $2.00 because I only used 1/2 can!)
1 piece of scrapbook paper: Free....already had it
Mod Podge: Free....already had it
Total Cost: $7.00!

Kathy...thanks so much for letting me visit today! I love all of your craft projects! Maybe I'll make some of your St. Patrick's Day stackers to put on my Goodwill stand!

Thanks so much Nikki for sharing such a great makeover - I love the glaze it really adds to the look. Nikki has lots of projects she has done for super cheap. She did a $20 bathroom makeover you can read about here.


She also has great decorating ideas - like using old windows. You can read about that here.


So go check out her blog Thrifty Decorating and see all the other great projects she has done.