Updated Baby Change Table

How's a girl to know she's a stay-at-home-Mom?  She gives furniture refinishing a try!

Pippa's nursery has like 5000 different types of wood in it, so I thought I'd paint over her change table to remove one shade of wood.  Nothing was wrong with it (other than some scratches I'd inflicted), it is a great hand-me-down from Rick & Amanda - thanks guys! 

I don't really have a great 'before' photo, but here we are after Adrian had just started to take it apart.

But wait!  "PAINT OVER LAMINATE?", you say in a crazed voice.  "Yes", I say, not quite sure of myself. 

We got ourselves to a fancy (read: $$$) paint store, and we bought us some super fancy primer. 

The clerk still said we'd have to sand, but we didn't believe him. Look, the paint is called "Stix" - as in it "Sticks" to everything, right?  Um, no.  Not right.  I had to lightly sand.  See below on the left with no sanding - yowsers!  But, like - lightly sanding things isn't the end of the world.  I don't know why I was so shy to sand things.  I decided to put two coats of primer on...well, just in case.  It dries fast.  And I didn't use that much of the expensive little can, so I gave it another go.  

Yaddah yaddah...two coats of black later, and TA DA!

Let us not forget the fancy new knobs.  Which I LOVE.  They are glass with some gold.  Very hot right now on DIY blogs.

A word about "black".  We told the man at the store we wanted shiny black.  He said, "I have lots of different blacks, just like you can choose different whites, pick a colour for me."  I went to the paint colour selection area and LAUGHED because all the blacks were the same.  I chose 'Jet Black' on a whim.

Joke's on me.  It is totally very dark gray, not actually black.  Drives me a little insane every time I see it.  Gray does not work in this room.  I wanted BLACK.  We even have another can of paint (different kinda fancy paint, I have a project in mind to justify it, stay tuned) of DARK GRAY which I deemed entirely unsuitable for this project.  True, this is much darker, but still.... #firstworldproblems.

Big Plans - the Outside!

We LOVE our new house - possession isn't until Jan 8th, but we already have big plans! This is more of a neighbourhood purchase - its within walking distance of cool things, and in a great school district, 5 min walk from the subway.

For example, sometime in the spring we hope to replace the 'Insulbrick' on the front of the house (to white siding to match the neighbours...? Or cedar shakes?). Also, I have already lost the bush in the front in a bet to Adrian, so that's coming out too. (This probably means we'll have to replace the porch railing, since you'll be able to see it then.) And we'll most likely paint the brick when it warms up - currently off-white or cream is in the lead, with a black door.