A Magical Makeover

I love to paint furniture. Taking ugly, discarded chairs and tables from the roadside and using them as canvasses to express my passions has become kind of a drug for me.

Recently, we had some furniture painted by the Advanced Art students. They painted some stools, a chair and even a book cart so that we can have even more color and personality in our library space. They did a great job:

Can you guess which books they used as their inspirations?

Years ago, I picked up one of those really ugly, 1970's, wood octagon end tables. I didn't remember to take a photo of it before I started working on it, but it looked similar to this one:

I meant to give it a makeover last summer, but it ended up just sitting in my yard as a catch-all for when we had cookouts and people needed a place to set a bottle or a plate down.

But these students' pieces moved me to put some thought into it, and think about a book that inspires me (and a book that I had not used yet as a theme for painted furniture). I decided to work some magic on that ugly little end table.

I used a few pages from a discarded copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and decoupaged the top. Then I used a paint marker to hand letter the wonderful Dumbledore quote:

I selected a few pages from a ruined illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and put those around the panels:

I found the wing furniture knobs on clearance at Hobby Lobby for a dollar each, and turned them into golden snitches by painting a marble and affixing it with industrial-strength adhesive:

I love how Harry seems to have his eye on the golden snitch.

I might still put some fun images on the inside of it, but at least it looks a lot nicer than it did before.