A Dumpster-Dive DIY Success

Yes, this coffee table was a dumpster find for me. I plan on writing a post on dumpster diving soon, but first I wanted to establish that you can do very well shopping your neighbors' trash.
Please excuse the quality of the pictures. For some reason, my SD card in my camera is locked (don't know how I did it, and I don't know how to undo it... I'm not great with the technology). Until I figure it out, I have to use the poor quality camera on my phone, and I don't have much memory on the phone, so i could only take before and after pictures.

This is the coffee table we found in our apartment's trash receptacle. We've been looking for a coffee table at thrift stores for a while, but they were the wrong size, or poor quality, or just not my taste. Finding this was beyond awesome, and since my husband was actually the one who found it, it made me so proud. He would never have considered doing such a thing before I came into his life. =-)
As you can see, the table was very worn, but it wasn't broken, and I really loved the bones.

This is the table after I painted it. And since we have (soon-to-be) 2 young kids, I paid $3.47 at Wal-Mart for a can of clear Rustoleum sealant. It's only been in the livingroom for a week, and we've already spilled kool-aid, pepsi, and coffee on it. It wiped right off! Best investment ever.
And that's the story of my $3.47 coffee table! I did have to use about 7 coats of paint for the white part of the table because the wood absorbed it, but it was well worth it. White paint is cheap.
Happy dumpster diving!