Night Tables

Diane
by Diane
4 Materials
$80
3 Weeks
Advanced
Took 2 night tables that had warped tops, cut new tops and went to town with my paint and paper.
I paid $20 for these 2 night tables. I didn't notice how much work they needed till I got them home. I accidentally deleted the original photos.  I scrubbed them really well with TSP because they were really gross.  I painted one drawer in the dark color. I had no idea what I wanted to do with them at this point.
Like I said, the tops were warped so I deconstructed them, one at a time so I would know how to put them back together. My husband cut me some new tops using the old tops as a template. I also had to apply an oak banding all around the edge, because as you can see this was not a solid piece of wood.  I didn't even know I could buy a solid piece. I also glued a melamine edging because I didn't know you could buy wood edging. It wasn't to hard to remove and start again.  I will know next time. That little green tool is what I used to cut my extra width of edging. But a sharp cutter works just as well.
I decided to do a raised stencil on one of the drawers.  It was a pain, it was very messy and took many nights because the spackle had to dry before I could move my stencil over. By the way, I used spackle and an old credit card to stencil this.
This is what it looked like when it was done. Had to wait for it to dry.  Then I sanded with about 220 grit paper until it was smooth and fairly even.
When it was dry I gave it 2 coats of chalk paint letting each dry in between.  I then applied 1 coat of polyacrylic, let that dry, then I used a dark glaze over top to bring out the design.
I covered the top drawer with wallpaper and I added silver acrylic paint to the raised stencils on the bottom drawer.  To add the acrylic, I had to place my stencil on the drawer again and move it around till everything was covered. I put my wallpaper on using wallpaper glue and let it dry overnight before lightly sanding the edges off. I cleaned the hardware but decided to leave in its original color because it matched.
URG!  I forgot to prime!  I sanded some, but the surface was quite shiny and this is what my first coat of paint looked like.  No panic though, well a little bit maybe. I took out my oil based sealer and primed over top of this. 
I tried staining the top with a water based stain, but it just didn't look good. I decided to paint it instead with Fusion Mineral Paint in Ash.  I also lined the drawers with a light blue flowered wallpaper for a clean look.
My finished pieces. 
Suggested materials:
  • Elegance chalk paint by Country Chic.   (local retailer)
  • Ash by Fusion Mineral Paint   (local retailer)
  • Minwax Zinsser BIN sealer   (Home Depot)
See all materials
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 9 comments
  • Paula P Paula P on Dec 14, 2017

    These are just beautiful. I would have never thought to give each drawer a different look and it turned out so well. I'm definitely going to give this a try.

  • Diane Diane on Dec 14, 2017

    Thank you Paula. I never thought about it either until I had started the process. My initial thought was wallpaper for both but then i discovered a new technique and had to try it.

Next