Labor Day Weekend Project - Refinishing Furniture

So Saturday of Labor Day Weekend I was out walking with my girlfriend Jackie when we came across a large hutch with a FOR SALE sign on it sitting on the outside of someone's porch.  I instantly loved it, and even though it was very 80's looking, I saw potential.  I knocked on the door, asked the price, some pit bulls ran out and scared my girlfriend & me, and through some awkward but quick negotiations, we agreed on a price and a pick-up time.  I came home from my morning out announcing to my husband that I'd bought a hutch and that it was big and that he and my girlfriend's husband needed to go pick it up right away.  Poor guy was less than excited.  They pulled into our garage to unload it, and I could see my husband's face was exactly what I'd anticipated, "Why would you waste your money on this?  What are we going to do with it and how much did you pay for it???"  I swore to him I had big plans and that he'd love it!  I spent the next three days (Sat afternoon, Sunday & Monday) working on it in an effort to prove my husband wrong!  I think I succeeded!  It was kind of a pain, but the final product was worth it! 

BEFORE (I should have taken a picture of it while it was still in it's pathetic state on the pit bull porch!  Here is is shown in my garage in two pieces):

AFTER:

I did not strip the piece, but probably should have.  Instead I cleaned it out (vacuumed out drawers & wiped whole piece down with kitchen cleaner just to get the germs out), put two layers of black flat paint on it (let it dry 24 hours in-between coats), then I distressed it with sandpaper to give it an aged look, wiped it down again to get off all the dust from sanding, and put two coats of polyurethane on it (again, letting coats dry for 4 hours each time).  I was going to switch out the hardware, but the spacing on the piece was not standard, so I would have had to special order new handles for the drawers, and when it was all said & done we actually decided the old hardware looked cool, so I was happy to save some $!  When it was all said & done, I spent $75 for the hutch, $5 for industrial gloves, $11 for the can of polyurethane, and I had the paint & brushes left over from another project, so $91 in total, and 3 days of sweat equity! 

Have you done any neat projects?  Looking to do one?  I'm definitely still in the learning stage (all I've done before is paint a few dressers & then recently did two end tables with spray paint, stain & polyurethane), but recommend the following blogs for learning & for inspiration (I also really like how helpful the folks at Lowes are!)!  These gals challenge me to try new things & I LOVE finding something for cheap that has potential & then the feeling of accomplishment of turning someone elses's cast-offs into something I love!
http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/    AND   thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com