Dressed Up Dressing Table – by Michelle
This colorful dressing table started as a very tired, beat up, dirty piece that looked more suited for the garbage bin than an upscale project. Even my husband, Ed, who can usually see my vision for giving new life to an old furniture piece thought I was tackling the impossible with this one! Here is how it looked when I first brought it home from the Lima ReStore. 
In spite of the gouges in the top, splintered veneer, marker, and dog-chewed base, overall the piece was solid. This piece cried out for an aggressive sanding, wood filler, and paint to give it new life. I removed the drawers and hardware and set to work with my palm sander, tub of wood filler, and lots of elbow grease to prepare the surfaces inside and out.
Paint It! You will find lots of paint at the ReStore, but I had several colors on hand that fit my vision for the dressing table. I started with painting the ENTIRE exterior (including underneath and the back) with several coats of a white semi-gloss, sanding lightly between coats as needed. Next, I gave the inside and sides of the drawers a pop of bright blue color and stenciled a pattern in green on the side panels. A topcoat of clear polyurethane makes the finish more durable.
Finishing Touches: Even with all of my filler and sanding, the extensive damage on the top was still visible, so I decided to add baskets (also found at the ReStore) to the back. (What a great place to store hair ribbons and brushes!) Painting the baskets and drawer pulls with some silver spray paint I had on hand gave them an updated, fresh and clean look. I attached the baskets with screws and washers (also found at the ReStore).
The mirror has some slight damage on the top edge, so I cut and added a piece of trim I had on hand to the top edge only, first spraying it with the silver paint. The bling on the mirror corners and bottom is a pattern of washers from the ReStore, of course, painted with more of the silver paint and glass floral beads I had on hand. Super glue insures they will stay in place! I also glued several ceramic dishes into the top center drawer for organizing jewelry. (Yes, these came from the ReStore, too!)
A Place to Sit: Ed helped our ReStore reclamation team to empty a house of reusable building materials before it was scheduled for demolition. Here, he found the perfect stool to add to my project. With a coat of silver spray paint on the base and new material on the seat top (found in my scrap material box) I had the finishing touch for this dressed up dressing table.
After all of that work, it was tough to part with this project, but I donated the whole piece to the ReStore for the annual fundraising auction. I hope it brought in a good price and found a happy home!