I See a Brown Table and I Want to Paint It ________.

I'm really challenged in the grown-up furniture department.  There are like three pieces of furniture in our house that are not from IKEA or Craigslist (even though, who cares, right, because IKEA and Craigslist are awesome!), and the few actual nice things we have came from Matt's mom.*

Anyway, we used to use this little computer table as our end table between our two recliners (one from Goodwill, one from Craigslist), but then it was always covered with cords and Reese's cup wrappers and coasters and cameras and crap, so I decided that we needed something that had storage.

Then, a few months back, I picked up this little fun table at a used furniture store by our house for $10!  And Matt and I both love it, except that I would love it more if it were painted.

Are you so jealous of Mitchell fur tumbleweeds?

It should be noted here that Matt does not want me to paint the table, and it's only been after several weeks of, "Yeah?  You're sure you want to keep that table that ugly shade of scuffed up brown?" that he's even been worn down and agreed that I can paint it.  But his agreement is all accompanied by eyeball rolling and slow head turning and shoulder shrugs, and now I'm a little conflicted because I want Matt to want me to paint the table.  And at that point we're basically Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston from that crappy break up movie, and even though we look like them (totally identical twins), we don't really want to go down that path because if we broke up we'd have to change our Facebook relationship statuses.

So you know what?  I don't care if he wants me to paint the table.  He's not going to be mad at me if I paint it, and there's a good chance that he'll realize afterward that I was totally right.**

Now, I've got some options here, and I want your opinion.  This table will be going in our ultra-white-with-bright-accents living room, and I can't decide if I should be conservative with it and paint it black.

Or if I should be more bold and do something like yellow?

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 Or orange?

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Or turquoise?

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Or purple?

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And now I want your vote.  What should it be?  The grown-up black?  Or one of the more colorful, exciting, fun alternatives?



*Without Matt's parents and our wedding registry, Matt and I would basically have an office chair and a rusty knife.  Sounds like the scene of a scary movie, huh?  


**See, also: parmesan cheese really does taste better when you shred it yourself; we should have an adventure honeymoon instead of an all-inclusive one; the dog should sleep in the bed.

I'm Basically Bob Vila.

So, a couple of months ago, I read this blog post where this girl took an old funky dresser and jazzed it up by removing the drawers and painting it. It was kind of awesome, and I thought it was something I might be able to do myself.

And just a couple of weeks after that, I was browsing the free section of Craigslist and I saw this dresser that was missing two drawers. Perfect! It was a little busted looking, but it had good bones, and I thought it had some potential for awesomeness.

After I picked it up from a very nice lady named Penny, I brought it home and put it in the office/junk room/catchall for everything in the house that has no real place. And there it sat for two months.

But then last week I got motivated. I removed the hardware, borrowed a sander from a friend, and went to town. In the house. Note to self: do not sand a dresser in the house. Seriously. It was a very stupid idea, but Matt wasn't home and the dresser was too big and cumbersome for me to move it outside myself and I wanted to do it RIGHT THEN and I, on occasion, lack patience. I'll be wiping up brown dust for the next year of my life, and I may or may not have made myself sick with inhaling all of the dust that was laced with Ebola or something comparable. Oops.

So after I sanded the dresser and filled in the wood holes, I primed it and gave it two coats of paint (The same paint that I'll soon be using on other house projects, so none will go to waste. The color is slightly off-white, Martha Stewart's color Talc from Home Depot. I plan to put the dresser in our guest room, and it'll be joining the IKEA Expedit shelf which is a little off-white as well.) I also added new hardware (which I found at Target on clearance for $13.98).

The last thing I needed to do was figure out how to do the bottom part. I considered baskets or some other kind of solution, but ended up just lining the inside with some fabric that I got from IKEA last year.

Anyway, here it is now. I'm in love.

Yeah, you can still totally see where the old hardware was. Also, I don't care.

And here's a breakdown of the cost:

• Dresser: free
• IKEA fabric: I had it already, but I paid $4 for it originally
• Paint: $15, but I only used like 1/10 of a gallon, and I'm using the rest for other stuff. So this was like $3 worth of paint and primer.
• Hardware: $13.98

Total: $20.98

Backsliding

Sometimes it's really hard for me to resist free stuff, even if I have absolutely no use for it or if it's complete junk.  It's a flaw of mine, and I'm working on it.

Also, I'm not really allowed to go on the free section of Craigslist because I always end up clicking on cute dogs who need homes and we've decided about 400 different times that it would be a bad idea to get another dog (Mitch is an only pet).  Then I get all depressed and sad and sometimes I start crying. 

But the other day I randomly clicked on the free Craigslist thing, and ended up getting a super cool dresser for free.  (It's going to be so awesome I can't even stand it.)

So now I'm all thinking I'm going to hit free Craigslist gold with every visit, which is silly and foolish.

I was tempted to go check this out, even if just for entertainment.  I mean, an Irishman dumping clothes in an alley in a waterproof bag?  What's not fun about that? 

I ended up thinking better of it because I don't really need clothes right now, and knowing me I would grab the wrong bag and the bag I grabbed would be full of snakes and spiders and jumpy frogs and then it would be the worst day ever.

I should've quit Craigslist's free page with that ad.

But then--then! 

Who can turn down a free piece of ass?

Ha!  Jokes.  And free donkeys!

Will you please ask Matt if I can get a pet donkey?*

*Annnnnnnd. . .I've officially run out of ways to waste time on the internet.