Old Microwave Stand Redo

So I was a busy beaver last weekend. Not that I actually got any cleaning or baking done like I planned, but I got lots of other stuff done. ;) The project that took me most of the weekend was a rehab of an old microwave stand. I am trying to actually clean and organize my craft room (porch) so that all the jewelry stuff is together, all the paint, etc. This stand sits in my craft room and is great for doing projects on since it has a drop leaf on it. (My mom gave me this for free. Woot!)

Here's the before:

And one with the leaf up:

Pretty ugly, eh? I was originally going to paint it an off-white, distress it and antique it, but at Junk Bonanza (see posts here and here), I saw several pieces that had been painted turquoise and distressed and antiqued, so I decided to go for it.

First I removed the hardware from the drawers. Then I sanded the whole piece with a palm sander. Then I painted the whole thing with cheap but effective paint from Walmart (Color Place: I believe the color was just called turquoise, I'll check and get back to you).

Here's what it looked like with a coat of paint:

Whew, that's bright! But don't worry, I'm not done yet! I took a piece of sandpaper and hand-sanded all the edges so they looked like this:

Then I took a foam brush and brushed on a dark walnut stain we had leftover in the garage. I put on the stain in small sections and then wiped it in circular motions with a rag. I did this over the whole piece and then let it dry. I didn't like the way it looked (still too bright), so I decided to brush on another coat with a bristle brush and just work it into the wood with the brush alone. This worked much better! To show you the difference, I took a pic of two drawer fronts. The bottom one is the one done with a rag wipe, the top one is after I used a bristle brush. Huge difference!

You can also see I spray painted the hardware with a hammered bronze spray paint (Rustoleum brand). When I put on the second coat of stain, I did it right over the hardware too. I think it helped it look much more aged.


Here's the finished product:

(Ignore the still messy craft porch. That's the cleaning I didn't get to this weekend.)

I love the result! That walnut stain definitely darkened up the turquoise paint a lot!!! What do you guys think? The whole project cost around $4. The only thing I bought was the half gallon of paint and I only used about half the can. I'm thinking now I might have to paint my tall freestanding cupboard in the craft room the same color!

* I plan on posting this tomorrow over at Shabby Chic Cottage for Transformation Thursday.

*Also linking up over at Infarrantly Creative's Roadkill Rescue Party!

Happy Crafting!