$10 Hooker

Did I get your attention? If so, I deserve a high-five, because it is a TOTALLY RELEVANT title for this post.

And I have Craigslist to thank for this $10 Hooker (go figure). Here she is:

Gorgeous. And to explain, I did indeed buy this end table for $10 off of Craigslist, and it was made by a manufacturer called "Hooker". And unlike a lot of the carelessly-labeled "mid-century modern" cruft you find on Craigslist these days, this nightstand is ACTUALLY from the 50s or 60s. A true mid-century piece.

And you won't believe this, but my luck did not end there. The reason it was only going for $10 was because the guy who sold it to me had ALREADY STRIPPED THE OLD VARNISH off the frame with the intention of refinishing it (which never happened). Here's what it looked like when I brought it home.

So basically the part I hate most about refinishing furniture was already DONE for me. And I got to pay $10 for it. Best. Find. Ever. OMG. BEST. FIND. EVER.

I still get really excited thinking about it.

I've been loving the white paint+wood contrast lately, so I knew that I wanted to paint the outside white. But first I needed to do a little more prep work.

I used a deglosser to clean the whole thing and remove any impurities that might keep the spray paint from adhering to the wood. I used Rustoleum's white primer and gloss white paint for this project. I also bought this special trigger for spray paint cans, which turned out to be one of the handiest things ever.

I highly recommend it if you want to save your fingers/hands from cramping up during a spray paint project. I can't believe I didn't own one of these a long time ago.

I won't bore you with the details, but two coats of primer and three coats of paint later, I had this:

Why so many coats? First of all, primer is cheaper than paint, so when I'm going from wood to white, I like to get plenty of coverage from a white primer to save on paint. Second, I do several THIN coats of paint to make sure I have a nice, even coverage with no drips, even if it means doing three or more coats.

I probably should have waited a few more hours for the paint to dry before putting the drawers back in, but I was too excited to visualize the final result.

Time to work on the drawers. First I removed those lovely drawer pulls.

And then used my orbital sander to take off the finish. Luckily it was just the front face, so I made quick work of it.

I opted not to stain the veneer, so I just used some leftover clear polyurethane from my coffee table project and did a few passes, making sure to sand lightly in-between coats.

I reassembled everything and just like that, I was DONE! One of my fastest thrift turnarounds ever. Thank you, random Craigslist guy, for being too busy/lazy/apathetic to finish :)

Here she is one more time in our little hallway. I've got a basket of string balls there, which I said I would give you a tutorial on a while back. Sadly I'm going to have to bail on that since my method was really messy and didn't work very well. The ones in this photo are the few survivors. But the point is, look at the pretty table!