Furniture Refinishing - Take One!

My friend Mallory is really crafty and inspired me to try my hand at furniture refinishing!  So last weekend I ventured out into the world of Craigslist and stumbled upon a buffet for $25.  When I contacted the seller, she said it was "all wood" and "antique."  Sounds great right?  So Jonnie and I hopped in the truck and headed over to Smyrna to pick up our first Craigslist purchase.  I have to admit we both were a little skeptical and hoping we were not going to be kidnapped, but we did indeed survive our encounter.

This is what it looked like from the Craigslist picture:

When we got there, she had taken out all the drawers for "easy moving."  After inspecting it, we realized it was definitely not real wood... and the back of the thing was a piece of cardboard stapled on.  Although it wasn't what I had in mind, I decided it would be a good "starter piece" and we hauled it to the truck.  It wasn't until then that we discovered... half of the drawers didn't fit into their homes.  Nowww we see why she had them taken out...

Because I am incredibly impatient and couldn't wait for Mallory's help and advice, I went ahead and googled "refinishing furniture" and decided to paint it black, since my dining room table is black.  I went to Home Depot, got all my supplies, sanded the buffet, primed it, painted it, painted it again... and hated it.  Darn my impatience!  Here's what it looked like:

It wasn't SO bad, but it was just boring.  And the imperfections were really obvious.  At this point I had Mallory over to rescue me.  Apparently she had a method of painting that involved no pre-sanding, no priming, little dry time, and awesome results.  Hmm.  Should have waited!  But we decided the black would look cool under the new color (Behr Cathedral - a match for Annie Sloan Aubusson Blue).  So she helped me and it turned out super cute!  Here is the finished product:

So that's it!  I'll post more details about the painting process if it's successful with my next project.  I think it turned out cute and adds a fun pop of color to my black dining room!

Maybe I'll be crafty after all!