Antiquing a French Provincial table on a budget

I've been on a Francophile kick lately for the baby girl's nursery theme: French Garden.

Over the past few months I've collected things here and there to try and make this nursery as calm and dreamlike as possible, but furniture was the one area that proved frustrating. I'd love more than anything to waltz into Pottery Barn and scoop up anything I want from their nursery collection, but money is a little tight with all our home remodels, and spending a grand here and there on nursery art and furniture just doesn't seem like the responsible thing to do. Luckily my parents bought us a beautiful new baby crib as a gift, so that was taken care of but I still needed a sidetable and a rocking chair.

After exhausting all searches on the Internet, I hit up my local consignment store looking for any type of table that I could modify. My only requirement? That it have French Provincial legs. Surprisingly these types of tables are more obscure than I thought, but just as I was about to leave the store empty-handed, I noticed this little hutch on provincial legs hiding under a rolled up rug:

(Ignore that goopy stuff on it. This was taken after we brought the thing home and slathered on some stripper compound to get rid of that awful Grandma patina walnut stain.) Grandma-furniture coloring aside, I saw major potential in this piece, especially with the adorable beveled detailing on the drawer and the steel mesh grids on the doors.

Since I'm conveniently pregnant at the moment, I had J work with all chemicals to antique this thing back to life so it would fit in a little girl's nursery. Like the diligent husband he is, J got to work stripping off the icky veneer. . .

This part took about two hours in 90-degree temps. Ugh.

Stripped and ready for painting. Much better already!

After perusing various design blogs, I decided to have J spray my little table with Rustoleum's "Heirloom White" paint in satin. I'm absolutely obsessed with this color -- it's a slight off-white with no yellow undertones like other off-whites. Two cans of spray paint and a sanding around all beveling and curves later, the final product was magnifique!:

Nice legs.

Love these curves.

The perfect nursery addition.

Materials Breakdown:

French table: $65
Stripper: $5
Mineral Spirits (to clean stripper off): $10
Two cans of spray paint: $8
Sandpaper: $4

Total Cost: $92

At just under a hundred dollars, I would say this project was a success! Especially considering that it was a solid wood piece and a hundred bucks barely gets you a heap of particle board at Target. We're currently at work antiquing a vintage rocker I found at another consignment store -- pics coming soon.