Bedside Table : Shabby to Chic

I've been doing this thing lately where I find things to do that need to be done, except they don't need to be done as badly as the things I'm avoiding doing. Mostly I'm avoiding painting jobs. We really need to paint our newly refinished conservatory and our guest bedroom needs a bit of a paint job so all you people fancying a trip to London will have a nice place to stay. However, I've said in the past that Nick despises painting, and I currently don't have enough motivation to do two rooms on my own. So for now I'll just continue with my silly, but pleasing little jobs.

My project this weekend : turn our bedside table from shabby to chic. This is the bedside table I had to work with.... A cheap thing Nick thinks he bought at B&Q, for about £10-£15. In his favor it is real wood. This is great because it means I can paint and repaint it without much problem, if it was some Ikea junk then I wouldn't have that option. Not that I'm totally sipping hatorade on Ikea, my entire college bedroom was furnished by them, I just like things that you can change.

Since the wood was unfinished I didn't have to strip it, and I was too lazy to sand it. So I just took the drawers out and attacked it with Dark Oak Satin Varnish we got at Wickes for £7.33 - not bad.

I'm not an expert at furniture refinishing, but I do read directions. It said for the first coat to dilute the varnish with 10% water. So thats what I did. Then I did two more coats of just varnish. I learned that following the grain of the wood is important, because when I was lazy and didn't it looked bad, plus it says this on the directions. Other than that it was so easy. And here is the finished product:

Is it just me or does that lamp seriously remind you of the lamp from the brave little toaster? I think its really ugly but I can't throw away lampy...

Anyways I think it looks more expensive now... for some reason dark wood = expensive to me.

I even painted the inside. I wasn't going to, but then I thought I was being super lazy so I did in the end. I'm not sure if this means I'm not lazy or I'm just OCD. What do you think?