Hi there! I hope your weather is as gorgeous as ours today- a sunny 75ish degree glorious fall day! I’m typing outside because it’s just too beautiful to be inside.

Today is Day 14 of Making Small Changes. I wanted to show you some of the projects my husband and I have completed over the years that involved taking old, outdated furniture and turning it into something beautiful with a little paint and imagination! (Usually, I provide the imagination and Ben provides the elbow grease. 😉 )

Paint can make such a huge impact when you want a change but don’t want to shell out a bunch of money. All of these projects except for one cost less than $50.

1.) a scary desk

Our very first project since I started blogging was this desk. We did TONS of projects way before blogs even existed (like completely remodeling two old farmhouses almost 100% by ourselves) and sadly I don’t have many pictures of those.

Anyway, I liked this desk because it doesn’t take up too much room. We’ve had it at least 10 years and a few years ago I almost decided to sell it because it didn’t match anything in our house. But instead we decided to give it a little paint and sew what happened.

It went from this:

To this:

I love the bright colors and how it looks totally different. (Don’t ask me if its this clean right now 😉 ) Click here to read the full details. The total was $33 for paint/fabric/accessories.

2. ) A boring to beautiful bookshelf

This bookshelf is made of solid wood so I didn’t want to get rid of it but it was surely nothing to look at. We decided to move it from my daughter’s room to our room

This is the result of a few hours of work and about $10 worth of fabric. The paint was leftover from painting our bathroom so we didn’t spend any extra for that. Click here for full details of all the goodies on the shelf.

3.) An updated cabinet

I decided to use this baby for storing our kids’ homeschool books back when we did it in the kitchen. (We changed our playroom to a school room last year.)

With a couple of hours it turned into something much prettier. I did this one all by myself. 🙂 Click here for the details.

4.) My teal dresser

Ah this dresser is now one of my most-loved pieces of furniture. (Not that I actually love furniture, but ya know.) I got this as part of a bedroom suit when I was in high school. It looked like this:

And now I get to look at this every day:Read full details here.

5.) Our major upcycle

This project required more than paint, but it’s definitely the project I’m most proud of. We took our old entertainment center that I gave Ben for our first Christmas we were married: