It’s a happy day when one of our favorite gals, Cara Wilkerson of Live the Home Life, joins us with a before & after. Did you see the magic she worked on this dresser? What about this painted burlap ottoman? And if that’s not enough, scroll below for her latest masterpiece!

Thanks, Cara! By the way, we’ve been loving your blog lately.

Every now and then, I get the itch to whip up a furniture rehab for a kid’s room. Now, once they’re completed, I don’t keep them tucked in a dark corner of my house awaiting the day I have a little one. I promise. I’m not one of those girls—pinky swear—but as a borderline work/blog/rehabaholic, it’s fun to flashback to my days as a carefree twelve year old and throw together a rehab I would have loved to have had in my tween years. Hence, my July before & after: a super girly coat rack.

Let’s start with the before shot. Snagged from the side of the road, this coat rack was 100% F-R-E-E. Just the kind I like…

By now you know the drill. When it comes to rehabbing furniture, it’s all in the prep work. First up, I gave the piece a good dusting. With all of its cracks and crevices this project would have been a definite pain in the you know what to sand, so I cheated a bit and used oil-based primer instead.

Perfectly prepped, primed and dry, now on to the good stuff. With so many details and notches already on the coat rack, all I really had to do was color inside the lines…a little pink here, a little green there, another little bit of green here…(oops!) a little touchup paint there…

…and voila! After a few coats of paint and a little patience, my girly coat rack was in business.

Destined for purses, scarves, jewelry & more, this rehab will be up for auction at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore & After fundraiser this September…see I told you I wasn’t going to keep this one for my nonexistent children.