HA!

I learned something today. Well, wait. First I have to go backwards a bit. I have been known to be referred to as "Hippy" and not in the sense of "hip and cool" but like flower child, peace, love and colorful rainbows. My sister calls me Granola OK?.. *I* actually love this reference and I have always found that The Mister is just as granola as me, or he puts up with it without complaints, making him as Hippie as me. Our homes have always been stuffed with mismatched furniture, thrift store decor and many many  bright colors of walls and linens and rugs...Nag Champa is my favortie incense smelll..you can see it. Either way.. for 14 years, we've lived happily ever after..Ok..fastforward. Now, my living room today is...in my opinion, more conservative than I would like it to be...not a favorite room in my home, but The Mister loves it. Here I spend everysingle day in my basement painting and sanding and creating one of a kind, colorful, vintage, solid wood beautiful pieces of furniture, while in my living room, I have GASP...Ikea...I like it..we chose the matching "antique" plain old wood grain style years ago when we bought it.(and before I was wiser to my future potential reviving the good 'ol stuff)..but, now, back to my old self again, I sure dont love it. Ive started a nag campaign on The Mister to change out some of things, like the entertainment unit...I wanted to use this sideboard I revived,

ahhhh...imagine. With a TV on top...it woulda been beautiful

but *sigh* it wasnt as "functional" as what we have now...and, he is totally right, but Im a chick...I dont (deeply) care about the functionality of the Wii and that other thing they play with remotes on...He, on the other hand really doesnt at all care about the color of our furniture, or the matchy-ness of the pieces..so long as he can play his video games and watch the hockey game in surround sound...This brings us to our crossroads of hippy retro flea market chic (me) and practical before pretty (him)

So, this brings me too my HA! moment!

I bought this lil shelf off of Kijiji..its from the same line of furniture that our coffee table and bookshelf is now. I planned on using as a side table in my bedroom but it didnt fit like I wanted it to..Then today, realized I should try to paint this..and if all goes horribly wrong, I'll have an ugly shelf in the basement to put the dog food and cat litter on..win-win to try I say!

and ya know what......

after some stripping and sanding and beating it up with a chain (seriously, i did that!)

it delievered itself the best totally unexpected outcome ever!

The top is so barn-wood lovely and the rest is so anthropology distressed...Its perfect. Looks like I stumbled across a compromise today..painting the few remaining IKEA pieces until our "functionality requirements" change (aka...get a finished basement) or until I find pieces that will work just as well. Honestly, we eat too many meals in the living room that a really super hippie cool vintage coffee table with a height of 15 inches just aint gonna work for us.

Honk if you LOVE this!