Last Spring an old friend of mine was getting rid a dresser–a nice solid piece with some broken hardware and missing decorative pieces. It went from her curb to my shed, and waited there for quite some time. Eventually I decided it would be a good time to experiment with chalk paint and antiquing wax.

That did not go well. I turned a perfectly nice dresser into a dingy, yellow mess.

I put the whole dresser back into my shed and reconsidered my plan. Then one night I was at a friend’s house. Her neighbors were moving and unloading their food on us. We scored a lot of quinoa, yogurt, and much more–and she also scored a desk.

Sadly I did not get a before picture of this desk because it was a doozy. Pink and purple with a gold braided trim, and no handles! It was a mess.

Luckily, we both have a knack for turning junk into treasure. We picked a simple, clean color and went to town. And by “went to town” I really mean that we got together about once a week in the heat and humidity, and slowly made headway with these two pieces. They were in my friend’s garage, which doesn’t have doors on it and so every time we wanted to work on them we had to begin by scrubbing paw prints off our nice white paint.

Our second hurdle came in the form of completely odd handle sizes that made it impossible to find matching handles, or find ones that were not astronomically priced. Our first attempts at finding handles was a failure–nothing fit. So it became clear that we needed to use mostly knobs… Lots and lots of knobs!

When we thought we were approaching the finish line we ran into another hurdle. This time it was two drawers from the desk that did not want to fit back into their given spaces. It took a heroic amount of sanding to get these drawers back where they belong, but we eventually did it.

Then it was time to do the fun stuff! We took advantage of a cool wall in the garage, the late summer light, and some strategically placed accessories to stage the items and make them look their best!

After our pictures were taken, we headed upstairs to order a pizza, and post the items on a local Facebook page. I left to head home–and post it in a few other places–but while I was sitting in the Starbucks drive-thru my friend called to tell me we had a buyer! A buyer who was willing to pay full price, and loved them so much she was going to rent a storage unit!

I was so excited–especially since I have a shed filled with smaller items that I’m trying to unload before the weather turns and they’re stuck there for the winter.

In the end, we can call this one an unmitigated success!