Anyone else love a good before & after?!

When making our house into a home, I work with a tiny budget. For the most part I’m ok with that (insert: learning contentment) because I love projects and I see potential in just about everything.

Two years ago we had just moved into a new house due to some crazy circumstances. I took that opportunity to change up the design of the boys’ room. I gave away their existing furniture to their soon-to-arrive baby sister, so that meant they were without a dresser. This was not a huge problem because their new bunk bed (craigslist find!) had two drawers under the bottom bunk and was perfect for their little shorts and pants. However, I still needed something to house jammies and undies. Due to the circumstances with which we had to move, the finances were tighter than ever. So when I found this little gem at Goodwill for a whopping $12 I had to make it mine! Or the boys rather. 🙂

I liked the lines and knew that a fresh coat of paint and new hardware would make it perfect!

I painted it Behr’s Pure Red and added black knobs from Home Depot and it was perfection!

Then, a little over year ago we moved again into the home I hope we get to stay in for awhile. 🙂 The boys were now another year older and as they were growing so were their clothes so this tiny little nightstand/dresser just wasn’t big enough. So I searched on Craigslist and scoured the thrift stores until I found a dresser that I loved and was inexpensive. I found the gem below via Craigslist.

Again, I loved the lines and knew that a coat of paint would make this $40 find just perfect!

I used the same can of Behr’s Pure Red to paint the dresser and spray painted the hardware black.

Furniture Painting Tip: Zinnser Primer is a dream and makes projects like this super easy! It’s oil based and smelly so make sure to do this project outside. No need for sanding with this primer! Just paint your primer coat. Let it dry and then paint your top coat. Red is tricky and definitely took a few more coats than I would have liked but with this primer I have had no peeling and even with rambunctious boys pulling the drawers out everyday for over a year, it still looks amazing! (And no, Zinnser does not even know I exist, this is in no way a sponsored ad. Although that would be nice. ;))

What do you think? Aren’t they pretty amazing! Stay tuned for all the details of this cute little boys’ room tomorrow!