Yelena's Nest: Rags to Riches

I have a confession to make.. it's kind of crazy.. here it goes.. We've never had nighstands. Ever. I mean we've used dinky plastic drawer things for a little while, but never stable, useful, real nighstands!! When I saw these, my desire to makeover furniture started burning high, so I purchased them! I started this project a few months ago and I'm finally done!!

I bought them from someone on Facebook marketplace.. I was pretty excited because they looked and felt like solid wood and at only $15 a piece, a steal!

But, after sanding all the drawers, I flipped one of the nightstand over to sand the bottom of it and realized that two sides of the nightstands were particle board with wood veneer..

Lesson here? Make sure you look at the bottom of furniture pieces you are purchasing if you want solid wood.

I decided to keep and transform them anyway.. even though I'm so tired of cheap particle board furniture. Oh well.. lesson learned.. at least this one is still mostly real wood.

Step one:

Remove the shine

(to help the paint stick)

With 60 grit sandpaper, sand all surfaces that you plan on painting. You don't need to completely remove the stain all the way down to bare wood, you need to sand it just enough to scuff it up a bit to remove the shine.

Step two:

Glue decorative pieces to drawers

I really like the look of queen ann legs on nighstands, but felt like adding curvy legs to such square nightstands was going to look out of place. So I wanted to add something to tie the legs into the nightstands. Mr. Chickadee suggested adding rope trim. While I was looking at rope trim, I saw these decorative pieces and thought they would tie in better with the tall dresser and desk that will go in our bedroom. So I went with these.. plus, less gluing time than all that rope trim!

I had to glue them on one at a time because all of Mr. Chickadee's big clamps are still in Missouri, he had just this one here.

It was too cold to glue & paint in the garage so I brought everything inside, but I suggest you wait until it gets warm and work in the garage because it got super dusty after sanding the chalk paint and distressing.. another lesson learned.. looks like my other projects will have to wait until warmer weather.. sigh..

Step three:

Attach the legs

As you can see from the photo below, some parts of the nightstands didn't have enough of a base to screw the legs into. So Mr. Chickadee added pieces of wood to give them more base.

Huge thanks to Thrifty Treasures for the tutorial on how to attach table legs!!

Looks better already!

I didn't like how the corners of the nightstands above the legs were just so... square.. so I rounded them off.. I know, I know, no one will see them.. but I'll know they are there lol.

Step four:

Remove dust

Make sure you vacuum and wipe everything down with a tack cloth, or a moist lint-free cloth, to remove dust before priming and painting.

Step five:

Tape

Tape off areas you don't want to paint.. I forgot to take pictures of this, but I re-taped it after the fact to show you what I mean :)

Step six:

Primer

I started this part of the process with just the drawers.

~~Lightly brush on the primer. The chalk paint label says it's not necessary, but as a precaution, I did it anyway..~~ If you don't want to deal with bleed throughs like I did.. give it a normal coat, or two, of primer. I will be doing that with the next project! Another lesson?!

Oh and P.S. Lay down a plastic paint tarp under your work.. no matter how good you think you are, you will drip. Even chalk paint is hard to remove once it dries! Lesson learned the hard way y'all!!

Step seven:

Paint

Apply three coats of paint allowing ample drying time between coats.

Step eight:

Smooth and distress

To smooth out the brush strokes, with a 220 grit sandpaper, lightly sand all flat surfaces after the last coat has dried. But if you want to avoid this part, you should probably spray paint instead.. and you would most definitely do that outside or in a garage!! Then, using a 160 grit sandpaper, distress the decorative pieces and all edges. This is where it got pretty dusty..

Step nine:

Remove dust

Vacuum and wipe everything down with a tack cloth, or a moist lint free cloth, to remove dust. Basically, do this every time you sand.

Step ten:

Reverse distress

I didn't like how the decorative pieces were so light peeking through the paint, there wasn't enough contrast, so I dry brushed grey glaze to the bare spots.. this is called reverse distressing. I think brown glaze would have looked better, looked more like wood, but I only had the grey one and I didn't want to order and wait for brown glaze..

Step eleven:

Seal

Apply 3 coats of polyclyric protective finish in satin. Allow to dry and lightly sand between coats. Make sure you do light coats because thick coats leave nasty streaks and bubbles and turn everything yellow!! I had to sand off the finish and redo it. You guessed it.. I learned another lesson..

I actually first tried a matte finish and absolutely hated it.. I'm sure it looks wonderful with any other color chalk paint, but with white it looked like I painted with white-out! And I didn't like how it felt to the touch.. but I also don't like super glossy finishes.. so I went with a happy-in-between of satin and, when I actually applied it correctly hehe, I absolutely love it!

Step twelve:

Repeat

Repeat the process with the rest of the nightstands..

The bleed through was pretty bad on such large surfaces.. I wish I had primed them better.. oh well.. lesson learned.. lots of lesson with this project!!