New Life – New Nightstand

I took a 1970’s style nightstand and updated it with a drawer and a current stain to bring it back to beauty.  Check out this awesome nightstand makeover!

As many of you know, I am newly separated.  I bring it up not to bad-talk anyone, but to explain why this latest makeover came about; you see, Hubby and I decided that I would keep all of my daughters’ bedroom furniture and in exchange he got to keep the master bedroom furniture…  which means that right now the room is relatively empty except for my mattress and box spring that I have on the floor (déjà vu to those student years right?)

I did pick up a few pieces of furniture prior to his moving out, so now I’m in the midst of refinishing them as my new bedroom set.

The other day I finished up a nightstand makeover on this little cutie:

Okay, so not so cute.

Quite dark and dated actually, but the frame was solid and it’s wood, so everything else can be fixed – even that ginormous nipple ring hardware.

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I removed the two doors from the front of the nightstand and then stripped the entire piece down to bare wood.  I used my favourite random orbit sander with a 120 grit sandpaper then down to 220 grit to get a beautifully smooth, clean finish.  I did have to do a bit of hand sanding as well to clear out the tiny nooks and crannies, but you’ll see it was worth it in the end.

I had originally planned to stop the nightstand makeover with a simple refinish job, but once I had everything stripped down, I decided that the bedside table would be a lot prettier and more functional if I had a drawer to tuck things into.

I whipped out a box and installed it with full-extension drawer glides – yes, they are more expensive (by a LOT), but the soft close and smooth bearings make it worthwhile on a piece of furniture.

I then stained everything with a weathered grey gel stain, and once that was completely dry, I went over it with a wash (1 part paint to 3 parts water) in BM’s Collingwood, wiping off the excess while wet.

I just find adding a wash in a colour helps to even out the finish on projects where you might not have the same wood throughout.  In this case, I had to build a new drawer and drawer front – and the ply wood I used wasn’t the same as the wood on the nightstand makeover.  Adding a wash helped even out the colour so that the two pieces look like they belong together.

Two coats of triple-thick varathane (sanding between coats) and done!

Well, almost done…

I’m debating about cutting a hole through the back and into the back of the drawer so that I can keep my chargers plugged in right inside the drawer like I did on this nightstand build.

There’s plenty of room, and no one needs to see my new boyfriend recharging right? lol

I guess I should paint out the bottom of the old shelf so that you can’t see it peeking out from under the drawer, but once my bed is off the floor, you wouldn’t notice this anyways.

In only a few hours time and with minimal cost (the nightstand was $20 and the rest of the materials and supplies I had already); step 1 of “Fresh Start” is complete!

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Have a great one!