And Now: After!

After a little elbow grease, both of my street finds have found new lives in our apartment. 

I confess, the coffee table wasn't even supposed to be for me! I found it sitting on a street corner in the West Village. I was driving along and it was absolutely whizzing down rain, and I was like ------- ARRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I don't want to put that table in my car!!!! But then I had guilt because we have three friends who literally just moved into new apartments and it seemed sacrilegious for me to leave a perfectly good coffee table sitting there when they had nothing to put there drink on when they're watching a movie. So I rallied, stuck the coffee table into the car, and zipped it back to Brooklyn.

At which point, it looked like this:

So I lugged it upstairs and gave it a good spritzing, thinking maybe I could get that mysterious white grunge off the table with a little Fantastic. No idea what it was, but Fantastic wasn't doing a thing except making the white stuff shine, so I pulled out the big guns-- Magic Eraser! I know I've mentioned this before guys, but OMG. These are definitely magic. Like legit wand-waving, harry potter having MAGIC. Two rounds of magic eraser and a little tinted Old English and you'd never know that the mystery gunk had ever been there.

At which point I looked at the table, and it was like I was seeing it for the first time.

"Well hello nurse!" 

I hadn't realized it, but maybe we needed a new street-find coffee table. (Friends be damned!) After a little rejiggering, it fit perfectly into our living room and I couldn't be more pleased.

I love free! 

My next big win was a bent-wood walnut side chair, also a discard, found in Brooklyn. This one was a little more of a challenge-- the backrest had fallen off and the seat was scratched, damaged old black vinyl. But after a little brute-force and reupholstery, the chair was rejuvenated as well! It doesn't hurt that I just happened to have a perfect piece of citrus colored linen which worked terrifically with our existing IKEA drapes. This is just the chair I've been looking for for our bedroom-- small enough to fit in the room, large enough to receive the endless pile of clothes that had been building up on top of my dresser. Yes. I've become the kind of person who has a considerable pile of clothes in her room. Disguised by a basket. (Fooling no one.) Shame on me. : (

The good news is that this chair is so pretty, it might motivate me to hang my clothes back up instead of tossing them onto the chair. Though I wouldn't hold my breath.

Old habits die hard.