seeing as last week’s before and after hutch was such a big hit i thought it was only right to share another fantastic hutch makeover from d*s reader and blogger kimberley. kimberley sanded and re-painted her hutch a sleek, glossy white and then filled it with all sorts of mid-century accessories (including one of the pots we talked about last week!). i have a weakness for hutches with tapered legs so for me this is a case of going from good to great. thanks for sharing, kimberley!

[if you have a before and after makeover you’d like to share on d*s just shoot me an email right here with your pictures]

the wonderful mike g of st. louis sent in these incredible before and after dressers. mike turned these fleamarket finds into super slick modern dressers with a bright splash of color. even better? mike has more fantastic before and after photos on his website, making of a parent. thanks to mike for sending in these incredible projects!

cara and mark of sewbettie sent in this fantastic before and after dresser project. what was once a normal, fairly drab wooden dresser is now a clean sleek piece that blends effortlessly into their room. details: carla drilled holes into the dresser and added decorative knobs (below). she explained that “the dresser is really larger and the bedroom is fairly small so i painted the walls and the dresser the same color (behr’s “manhattan mist”) so that the dresser would disappear into the walls”. such a great idea. the oil painting in the “after” picture was done by mark and the vase is a gifted mccoy knock-off from cara’s mom. thanks for sharing, cara and mark!

mackenzi farquer of the wonderful long island city store site sent in these fantastic before and after chairs. when she was opening her shop she found this set of old restaurant chairs that had great shape but were in “sad” condition. so mackenzi stripped them and painted them in oil paint for durability (”in just the faintest pink i could find”) and then used some repro depot fabrics she ordered for the seats. the result? gorgeous. and i’ll have to say these chairs were quite the find. the only leftover restaurant chairs i see in my neighborhood look like this. thanks, mackenzi!

i don’t normally do a lot of kids and baby posting around here (i get the most angry emails when i do. mostly a lot of “don’t turn into a yuppy baby blog you jerk! we don’t all have kids!”) but i couldn’t resist posting some of these gorgeous pieces from eric pfeiffer’s 10 grain company. i just love all the patterns on each piece (and the great product photography). they’re not brand new but considering just about everyone i know had recently had a baby (really, everyone) i figured it might be timely. i wish some of these came in big-people sizes. click here to check out more from 10grain and shop online. [thanks, eric!]

stay tuned for four before and afters up next…

today i wanted to post about the retail website that has taken the design world by storm since it launched in 2005. etsy is described as the place to buy and sell handmade items, and it seems anyone who’s anyone is opening a store. obviously the really big players are excluded as items must not be factory produced, but lots of designers have found it to be great way to reach a worldwide audience. many who already have their own retail website find its also worth having an etsy presence, and given that on the 21st january 2008 etsy had 8.6 million page views you can see why. the postcard above is by the black apple, aka emily martin, who is a real etsy success story selling over 12,000 items. here are some of my etsy picks for today.

above, you can find artwork on etsy ranging from $10 write up to highly collectable art like
this from rob ryan priced at $400.

you can find sophisticated designs like those above from inkjet, kate sutton, and decoy lab, or fun cute items like these below from the hunted and this little pig.

what makes etsy so accessible is reasonably priced worldwide shipping, and once registered you can safely pay using paypal. why not take a look and see what you could buy or sell on etsy. below pillow by joom, artwork by jenn ski, and prints from bird nerd.

julie and kathryn from perfectbound have such wonderful eyes for color. i’m still in awe over this fantastic turquoise composition they posted earlier this month. thankfully they’ll be guest blogging for d*s next month and bringing some more beautiful color to the site. click here to check out perfectbound.