Furniture Remix: Vanity to Nightstands

I’m a little embarrassed about how long I’ve been away from the blog lately. It’s not that I’ve fallen out of love with all things DIY, it’s just that I have a few too many irons in the fire (classic). I have a lot on my plate and projects sort of take a back seat these days. But, I finally carved out a chunk of time to finish a project that has been sitting since JULY of last year. OH MY GOSH. I actually didn’t realize it had been that long until I looked for the original post to reference.

Remember when I chopped this up and turned it into nightstands?

Well, they sat like this for 6 months apparently.

Although I blame lack of time for the sad, sad state of these guys – the main hang up was that I really just couldn’t decide on a color. I asked for some opinions on Instagram and Facebook and came up with Behr’s Spiced Wine. I had it color matched at Sherwin Williams into a sample quart. That’s my favorite furniture paint! For less than $6, you can’t beat the value. I have painted dozens of pieces with it, and they all look as good as they did on day one!

So, here goes the transformation.

The original finish was somewhere between green and tan bordering on a shade of vomit. The original hardware, however, was really standout in my opinion. The new shade of paint should really make it pop.

I pretty much always follow the same steps when re-doing furniture – and it almost never involves primer. Gasp! Honestly I don’t think it’s necessary, especially if you want to do any distressing. The key to a lasting finish is applying THIN coats, sanding between them lightly and finishing with a great paste wax.

Starting with some all purpose cleaner or de-greaser, I try to get off any major dirt with a rag. Then I go over the whole piece with 80 or 120 grit sandpaper to rough up the existing finish (if it has one). The goal is not to completely strip the finish down to bare wood, it’s just to scratch through enough to let the paint get some grip. To remove the dust, you can use a damp cloth or cheesecloth.

The first coat of paint should go on so sheer that it 1) looks terrible and 2) should have NO drips. If you have drips anywhere, you’re applying too much paint! My favorite paint brush to use is the Wooster Short Cut, but any decent brush works with this paint pretty well. After I painted the first nightstand with one coat, I repeated all the steps with the second one. When I was done with that, the first one was ready to be painted again. One of the bonuses of applying thin coats is the quick dry time!

I applied a second coat of paint – still thin, but starting to get more coverage, and let it dry. I sanded with 220 grit after this coat, painted on a 3rd coat, sanded, then painted on a final coat. Darker colors usually take more coats to develop the true color and get even coverage. That’s why it’s essential to apply thin coats and sand in between – you don’t want a peeling latex mess!!

It looks a bit magenta in this light, but I swear it’s not 🙂

After both nightstands were painted, I decided to sand the paint off around the edges of the drawers and frame to give the piece some dimension. Then I got this wacky idea to paint the newly bare edges gold. Sometimes I just do weird things. I’m not great with an artist brush, but I really love how it turned out. Once the gold paint was dry, I used some Old Masters Wiping Stain in Dark Mahogany over the whole she-bang. It’s super easy to apply with a rag (wear a glove!). Just rub in the color and watch it take your finish to the next level!

The final step is waxing – but I’ve found that many times it rubs off the stain. My solution is to use some matte clear sealer spray to set the stain, then apply the wax. The brand I’ve used most recently is Rustoleum, and it gets the job done. I think the best solution would be for me to skip the stain and finally purchase some dark wax to use instead and save a billion steps. One day…

In any case, I love love love love love love love the final look. It really changes the way the space looks and gives it some polish.

See how they pop against the wall now??

Yowza, that hardware is killing me. How wasted it was on the old version!

I’m so happy to get my first 2015 project done, even if it did start in 2014. I almost forgot how fun it was to paint! The best part was walking around the rest of the day looking like I was in a slasher film with red paint all over me. Yes, I went to yoga like that!

Have you been working on anything lately? Did you drag anything out from last year to finally finish like I did??