The Great Nightstand Dilemma...

I know I SHOULD be catching up on the adventures of last weekend, but I'll get to that. One step at a time...

I finally decided to challenge myself in the field of interior design by making the decision to remove red from one room entirely. Wow that was a hard one. I chose our bedroom, and instead decided to go for a kind of robin-egg blue and mustardy yellow colors, which, if I can pull off, ought to look awesome together. (The operative word there is "if," but whatever.)

Task 1: Replace the particle-board round tables covered with long red tablecloths which were serving as nightstands with actual furniture. The first part of that was easy - I just removed the tables. Done. Next I had to hunt down two nightstands of the right size and proportions which were matching enough to be refinished in the same color and not look odd but different enough to be interesting. (A little more work there.) I found the first at a garage sale for $25 - a steal, I thought, after I spent so long hunting. This was before I knew you could buy a nightstand at a thrift store for $7.50 (which is where I found the second one). Well, live and learn right?

Here is the "before" version of the $7.50 nightstand. Yikes, right? Believe me, it looked worse in real life. But still, good bones.

Take a good look at all that damage on top! Ick.

So here's how my weekend went (2 weeks ago):

Step 1: Remove drawers and knobs and sand everything down, as quickly as possible because (a) the noise of the electric sander is probably annoying the neighbors, and (b) Travis believes the sawdust and varnish-dust is likely harmful to the baby (poor little guy) - I'm sure he's right. Fill in the old hardware holes on the drawers with wood filler and sand that down too. (Um apparently I don't have pictures of the main piece after sanding. Weird. Here are the drawers.)

Step 2: Paint the whole thing blue.

Step 3: Sand again by hand, mostly distressing the edges. If I was going to be more professional (and wasn't already losing steam by this point) I would've done an all-out distressing job with chains and nails and razor blades, but that little sanding block was looking pretty sufficient by now. Hm no pictures here either. I wonder what was going on?

Step 4: Rub the whole thing with stain. *NOTE TO SELF for future reference: I first used a stain blended with polyurethane to save a step. This was NOT ideal because I couldn't leave the stain on to darken the raw wood as much as I wanted since the polyurethane was drying too quickly and became too sticky to wipe off smoothly. On the second nightstand, I stained first with plain old stain and THEN went for another coat of the stain/polyurethane blend. Much much better.

Step 5: Add new hardware. For this I had to trace the new handles to make a template and then drill. It was windy and cold outside so I did a really speedy job. Luckily everything turned out straight and only one of the holes was about a millimeter off and needed re-drilling.
Mysteriously, I don't have ANY "before" or "during" pictures of the other nightstand! Oops. Here's the finished version, anyway. This one was a beast because I couldn't figure out how to remove the drawers so I had to sand/paint/stain around them. In my head, it sounded like it would be easier than it actually was.
AND FINALLY, the matching-yet-non-matching pair, together.
I bought a quart of blue paint for around $4 or 5, and I found the drawer handles on clearance at Target for something like 74 cents each. The stains, brushes, sandpaper, and other materials I already had leftover from other projects. So, total cost for both nightstands ended up being around $40!

When Katie and Dave were here last weekend and we were sifting through the "tourist information" we've accumulated, I showed them a flier from my dream home in Harper's Ferry. I was gushing about the charming little house on the top, with shop space underneath along the street, where I could... "sell refinished furniture?" Katie guessed before I could even tell her. I was like, "HOW DID YOU KNOW that's what I wanted to do???" She just knows me all too well. Maybe someday we'll open up that little shop together.