In The Meantime... The Boys' Room

While I'm waiting on the diva's room to cure, I decided to use it as a place to paint the boys' chest of drawers.  Well, why not?  All the carpet is ripped out.  I'm going to either redo the hardwood floors or install carpet.  Its the perfect spot!  (And plus, I'm just too lazy to drag it down the stair and outside.  Much easier to drag it across the hall!)


About a year ago, a good friend of mine gave me a chest of drawers that was sitting out in her garage.  Honestly, I just thought I'd use it for a little while until we could afford to buy the boys matchy-matchy furniture for their room.  Well, since I've been sucked into blog-land, I have realized that you can do just about anything with what you've already got.

Now, my boys are 100% All-American males.  If its a sport, they play it or they want to play it.  Their TV is constantly turned to the Big 10 Network or ESPN.  My oldest plays basketball, while the other two are die-hard wrestlers and football players.  They both were state qualifiers this year for the AAU Kids State Wrestling Championships in Des Moines and the youngest is the state runner-up in the 2nd grade 60 lb. weight class.  Yep, we pretty much live and breath sports around here and I'm the typical mat mom.

Since we live in the great State of Iowa, my boys are University of Iowa Hawkeyes fans.  By coincidence, our high school mascot is the Go-Hawk, which is very similar to the vintage Hawkeye.  Our school colors are black and gold, as well.

About 2 years ago, I finally got their hideous blue/yellow flowered room painted.  The top half of the wall is Hawkeye Gold and the bottom half is black.  I know, makes your eyeballs pop out of your head, doesn't it?  They, however, LOVE it.  But given that their room is entirely Go-Hawk/Hawkeye themed, it works.  It isn't what I would pick, but it definitely keeps them pumped up and focused on their game, whatever it may be.  Throw in tons of medals and trophies for basketball and wrestling, and well...  It a mecca for testosterone.


So anyway...  A.D.D moment there...


I had this dresser.  This ugly...  hideous... disgusting dresser.  I really wanted to throw it out.  And then I started looking at all of these re-do's at some of my favorite blogs and I started thinking...  This dresser just might have possibility.


Here it is BEFORE:

  
And then after some sanding, some primer, and some paint....

 VIOLA!

I have to admit even I was surprised that it turned out that well.  I was able to salvage the corroded knobs and pulls by sanding and spray painting them silver.  All in all, I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  Especially since it's the first time I've ever attempted to paint furniture.

And. . .  Since this chest of drawers belongs to our resident pumpkin-pusher (basketball player), I added this for him:

 Cut out a stencil on contact paper and then traced it with chalk.

Pulled off the contact paper to leave the traced stencil behind.

And then painted it free-hand.  

Maybe next time I'll just leave the contact paper on and see how that works.  My hand isn't steady enough for the edges.

I know I'm FAR from being an expert, but it sure does give me hope for the rest of the stuff I have sitting around the house.  Plus, I'm practicing on the kids' stuff, so by the time I get to the furniture in my bedroom, I'll be a pro.  ;)

So, here's the final product again:

Not too bad, eh?