What I Did On My Summer Vacation Part 5 :: The Family Business

Long time readers will remember The Family Business.  Basically, we used to hunt garage sales for cheap, ugly furniture, give the pieces makeovers and then resell them on Craigslist for a profit.  This summer we decided that all our proceeds from the Family Business would go toward paying for our vacations.   

The whole family is part of this business.  The kids are the lookouts.  While we're driving around looking for garage sales they call out if they see any furniture.  They also help out with cleaning the pieces and are gophers for Geary and me.  Noah is especially helpful with entertaining his brothers so that Geary and I can work without distraction for a while.  Next summer I think we'll teach them to sand and fill holes with wood putty.

Somehow we were able to make all the cash we needed with just two pieces.

We bought this dresser for $10 from a garage sale.  

It had great lines, was solid wood, and was nice and sturdy.

The biggest obstacle was replacing those handles.  At first I tried to find matching replacements but they weren't a standard size and although I could find lots of similar styles I wasn't able to find an exact match.

Finally, I found these brass pulls.  But, sadly, I miscounted and only ordered 8 of them when I really needed 12.  The shipping took forever so after I realized my mistake, we had to wait forever again to get the last four.  And we had to pay for shipping twice.  That was a bummer.

But I am so pleased with how this dresser turned out! It's kind of like a Captain's Chest, eh?

We used furniture wax for the first time to finish these.  I love it.  I am now a big fan of furniture wax.  No brush marks, it's easy peasy to use, and it gives the piece such a nice lustre.

We sold it for $130 and used the money to go camping.

This next piece was given to us by some friends who knew we would fix it up and resell it.

I knew it needed to be a soft color and it seemed to be begging to be green.

But first we sanded it down and then gave it a base coat of white.  Then we bought a small sample pot of green paint at Home Depot.  I dry brushed the green over the white and then distressed the edges.

The green paint was color matched to this wrapping paper that I used to line the drawers and back of the secretary.

I love how beachy and shabby chic it turned out.  It was really tempting to keep this cutie.

But I'm happy to say it has a new home at my friend's house so I can visit it.

It was sold for $60 and we used that money for a quick trip to Seattle to see my Grandma.

We also bought a $5 armoire and were given a dining room table and some other smaller tables but we didn't get a chance to work on those this summer.  I do have plans for both pieces, though, and I'm pretty sure they are both going to stay in our home.  Stay tuned!