Here’s where my inspiration ended on the dressers: white dressers, black hardware.

And thus, the new, meditative hobby I envisioned for myself becomes a chore and a glaring example of my complete lack of creativity and failure to conceptualize a project.

This happened last year with gardening, too, remember? I think I said I would sooner saw off a leg than work in the yard, and then a few short weeks later I was happily puttering in the dirt creating seedlings. And then I didn’t know where to put them. Or how to take care of them. Or how to landscape architect my yard. So I put plants everywhere. Just wherever there was dirt and a hose could reach it, I threw in a plant!

Can you imagine what happened when it was time to weed the garden, to this novice gardener who’d never not killed a houseplant, who could not tell weed from bean, thyme from marjoram, catnip from spearmint from lemon balm from stinging nettles?

You may understand then, why I’m reluctant to just jump into another furniture revamp armed with six paint colors and a sketchy idea of what I want to do with the thing. The last thing we need in this house is a repeat of the Great Purple Furniture Era. We’ve only just released that last little purple table into the universe, god bless it.

I want this house to reflect “me”. Except I want someone to tell me what that’s supposed to look like on a salvaged side table that looks kind of like a buffet. Who wants to look at pictures of every room in my house and help me pick a style for each room and THEN advise me how to repurpose the furniture that already exists in it. The key to this style overhaul is that we don’t have any money to spend on new furniture. Or pillows. or fabric.