Garage Sale Treasures - Hexagonal End Table

     Who else loves garage sales?  For a person with a creative and discerning eye, they can be full of items with amazing potential in refurnishing a house with unique pieces on a budget.  For a bit of backstory, for the final two years of my college education and the first two of my younger sister's college education we lived together in an off-campus apartment at our out-of-state university.   The challenge of moving two people's worth of items into a apartment and to decorate it in a way that made it feel like home was significant.   The best solution, and one that turned out to be very helpful in emotionally preparing for the move, was to scour garage and estate sales for pieces to refinish, all in matching black and white.  Admittedly, I had somewhat little to do with the project, as my mother and sister mostly completed the jobs while I worked over the summer.  However, I have very fond memories of that apartment, and am happily continuing the pattern with selecting some small pieces to work on in anticipation of having them in my own home.

     My style is a curious mix of color-blocking and modern styling with an equal attraction to old pieces and complex elegant detailing.  Marrying the two styles was something that I thought might be challenging to do well, but I have so far not had much trouble with balancing.

     A few Saturday's ago I was hopping through the morning garage and estate sales when I stumbled upon this old time beauty.

     I found this gem at the second day of an estate sale, when everything over $5 was 50% off! Score!  I have no idea how old it is, but it is solid wood and was in good structural shape.  It needed a good scrub in typical garage sale fashion, and had some thinning and damage to the finish on the top, but didn't need much work.  It was originally marked at $50, which is thoroughly out of my normal price range for these projects, but since I loved it and it was 50% off I went for it for $25.  It was the vine-and-floral carving on the doors that sold it for me.  The nice family selling it even helped me put it in my tiny sedan.

     As much as I love wood, I find that dark finishes, especially on older and visually heavier pieces, can really make a small space seem smaller.  Maybe that is just a personal preference thing, but I know that my Starter Nest is not going to be anything of a large square footage.  Therefore, I opted to lighten and refresh the piece with an all-over paint job. 

     I used Glidden DUO paint in Eggshell finish and the Behr color "Bleached Linen".  I chose the paint with the help of the extremely knowledgeable paint expert at my local Home Depot (Thanks Jake!), due to the fact that it was a paint & primer combo and was more cost-effective than some of the other paint brands.  I only had to very lightly sand the piece before adding this paint, and while I ended up doing 3 layers of paint, it came out lovely!

     I really liked the original hinges and door handles on this piece, but found that their original color was too stark a contrast against the white for my tastes.  Instead I decided to paint them over entirely, then go back with my sanding block after the paint dried and distress them to remove some of the paint.  I can't wait until this piece can be placed in its spot in my home, until then - careful storage.