Paint it black

Stephanie is an awesome decorator. Ever since we got married, she's been watching for cheap or free furniture and decorations that she can fix up and use in our home. They've all turned out great. Here's the latest project, a long-awaited night stand:

After a careful spray-paint job, it looked like this:

When our next-door neighbors moved out a couple months ago, they had some things they were going to take to D.I. and asked Stephanie to see if there was anything we wanted. She settled on a big entertainment center (ours was small, plastic, and bowed under the weight of our TV). We spent the weekend sanding and painting it, and when the dust settled—and believe me, there was a lot of dust—it was just like new.

This is after we'd already sanded and started priming the wood, but you can still make out the brown color it was when we started.

Putting on the primer

Adding a coat of paint

The finished product.