Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Pink & White Two-Toned Nightstand Makeover

It's not very often I can say that something turns out the EXACT way I imagine it.  But this is one project that did!  I knew the look I wanted for this nightstand for my daughter's room.  I had everything so beautifully imagined in this little head of mine. And I can happily report, that this is exactly what I wanted.



Here's the nightstand before:





I had purchased this nightstand with a matching dresser from someone local for $50.  I was so excited because for the quality and size of this furniture, it was an amazing deal! It had a few scratches and dents, a broken corner, and some kind of weird marks on it that I couldn't tell you what they were.  But there's nothing that a coat of paint and some elbow grease can't fix.  So I knew I'd have a little bit of work ahead of me.

To get started, I removed all the drawers and using an air compresser, I blew out all the dust and dirt that was laying on the bottom and sides.

I sanded the whole nightstand down with 150 grit sandpaper.  I didn't do a lot of sanding because I knew I'd be priming it.  So a light sanding worked just fine.

Before I got right into painting, there was some work to be done.  I needed to fix that chipped/broken corner.  Here's what it looked like:



There was this huge gash of wood missing from the side.  So I used some Elmer's wood filler and a plastic scraper to smooth it over and fill in the missing piece.  I also filled it any dents or holes that needed a little work, too.




After letting it dry overnight, I sanded it with 100 grit sandpaper, by hand.  I didn't want to use my electric sander because I didn't want to risk having the pressure of the sander leaving holes in the wood filler.  I sanded off as much excess filler as I could, making sure it was a smooth as I could possibly get it.


Now it was time to prime it!

I used Zinsser Cover Stain Primer in white.  I like to use this primer for wood or dark colored furniture.  The beauty part of this primer is that there's no sanding required.  But for some reason, I just can't seem to skip sanding.  Even if it's just a light one, I always seem to maybe make a little more extra work for myself.  I have no idea why!


The rollers I used to prime and paint the nightstand was a 4 inch foam roller that I had picked up at Home Depot.


I primed all the drawers first.



Now I know that some people say that primer isn't that important and it doesn't have to be perfect.  I kind of agree with that, in a way.  It doesn't have to be perfect, but you don't want runs and bubbles that you will see once it's painted.  So I do try and take my time and get a nice clean finish, even if it is just primer.

After the drawers were finished, I started on the nightstand.




I like to do two coats of primer whenever I can.  Especially when going from dark furniture to light.  I wait about 2 hours between coats.

After the two coats were applied, I let it dry overnight.  Now it was time to paint!

I used Behr Satin Enamel paint in the color Popped Corn.



I used the 4" foam roller for the big surfaces and a Purdy XL Medium Stiff Nylon brush for the detail and hard to reach spots.  You don't want to cheap out on a brush because the last thing you want to be doing is picking out tiny brissles out of your freshly painted surface.


I gave the nightstand and the drawers two coats of paint.




After the paint dried overnight, I gave the middle of each drawer two thin coats of pink paint.  The paint I used was by Behr in the color Musical Mist.  It was the perfect shade of pink that I wanted.  It's a pale pink that I thought would look really clean and nice against the white.


This was actually the sample size that I purchased because I knew the inside of the drawers wouldn't take much paint.  The sample cost me around $2.50.

I decided I wanted to change the knobs on the nightstand as well so I went with these crystal like knobs that I had picked up at Home Depot. ( Are you seeing the slight obsession I'm developing when it comes to shopping at Home Depot??)



The last step was to apply a top coat to protect it from any scratches or normal wear and tear. And also for the fact that this was going in a 6 year old's room and Lord knows what she could do to this thing after a while.  So for this I used Polycrylic by Minwax.  I didn't want to use Polyurethane as I've heard it yellows over time.  So I decided to go with this one.  I applied it, but only to the top of the nightstand.


And it was finally finished!


Still on the look out for the perfect lamp to top this little beauty, but have had no such luck yet!



Here's the before and after:

I'm so happy with it.  And more importantly, my daughter absolutely loves it!  I think it's fit for princess!


2 comments:

  1. Wow, I am super impressed. I would have passed this up because of the corner. Now I will look at garage sale finds with a different eye!

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    1. Everything is always fixable, no matter how bad it looks! :)

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