A small side table gets a super easy & cute makeover!

This is my first furniture project of the year.  It's weird, but it's difficult for me to work on furniture without James being here.  Refurbishing furniture was our thing--James would repair the absolute trash furniture I brought home & then I painted everything.  

There's still a rocking horse in the basement that James repaired before things got crazy.  I know I need to paint it, but I can't bring myself to start on it.

I randomly found a small side/end table at Goodwill last week & decided to bring it home.  It just needed to be painted, so it was a relatively easy project.  I'm sure if James were here, he would have made some repairs.  It's a little wobbly & James was all about perfection when it came to anything like that.  He would have had it as good as new in no time.  Now I just have to be comfortable with the imperfections.

I dug out my favorite Fusion Mineral Paint color, Sacred Sage & got started.  The finish was a little shiny, so I sanded it down just a little bit with my sanding sponge.  I got lazy & didn't sand the entire thing, but the paint went on beautifully.  I love Fusion Mineral Paint so much.  It's very forgiving.  My favorite part is that it has a built-in topcoat.  I've had some major topcoat disasters with bleed through & I've never had it with Fusion so far.

How to distress painted furniture.

After all the projects I've done, I can't believe I've never written a post on how to distress furniture!  I have mentioned my techniques a lot but I have never made a post dedicated just to distressing furniture.

That's what I'm going to be doing today!

Distressing furniture is an easy process to make furniture look old & worn.  

Why do I need to distress furniture?

I usually end up with the worst of the worst furniture where preserving old paint is impossible.  Most of the pieces I deal with are either not painted at all or the paint is usually mostly gone.  While distressing furniture takes off the paint, I still like to have some paint on the pieces.

Also, I like to make furniture pieces appear old.  It's a lot cheaper for me to buy junk pieces & transform them myself than to buy authentic old furniture.  I also get nervous around old furniture/investment pieces.  I'm afraid it will scuff or break & I'll lose out on my investment.