Decorating a new apartment

After searching furniture stores in vain, looking for something that "spoke to her,"  Liz settled on the idea of decorating her apartment in a "Retro Country" style.  In a way, this made things easier because we could look in junk stores and antique malls for one-off pieces and then modify them to suit her.

The first thing we found was a screen to use as the headboard of her bed.  Now, she didn't have to worry about finding an entire bedroom set that she liked.

Then we found the cast-iron base of an old Singer sewing machine in a junk store.  It had no top, so we looked for a suitable replacement.  I painted the base ivory, left it pretty "chippy" and distressed a wooden tray to use for the top.

I was worried that the weight of the base would wreck the tray if anyone tried to pick the table up, so at Stud Muffin's suggestion, I built a frame on the base and a smaller frame attached to the tray bottom to nest in the base.  (Did that make any sense?)

 And as they say in the country...Wa-la!  A bedside table with removable tray top!

We found another table that was marked way down because it had a broken drawer and leg.  A bit of wood glue fixed the problems, and she got a table for about 25% of the original price.

Another table was found at the same store that the Singer base came from. For $20, I picked up this table, painted it a pretty blue and then dry-brushed a taupe-grey paint over it.

I am seriously getting into this whole buy-something-and-distress/age it anyway I want.  I scoured the local Goodwill and found this organizer thingy on a turning base to use for the tv remotes.

I also found this organizer and have just finished painting and sanding it for Liz.

But, shhhhhh!  It's a surprise!  If she likes it, it may find a home on the narrow table/desk that I'm building for her guest room/office.  I know!  Can you believe that I am actually trying to build a table? With legs and everything?? I'll let you know how THAT turns out!