Nightstand Makeover!

by Heather (New House New Home)

2 Materials

$40

2 Days

Medium

If you follow my blog, you’ll know that refurbishing wooden pieces of furniture is one of my favourite things. So this challenge was right up my alley – taking something that looked awful and giving it new life.

Pretty bad, eh? After a good cleaning it was time to remove the veneer.

Most veneer has been applied with a water based glue. Soaking the glue will loosen the veneer, making it easier to lift off. Leave a wet wrung-out towel on the damaged area for about an hour.

Gently place your putting knife under the edge of the veneer and lift. It should come off quite easily. You may have tiny bits of veneer left on the piece. You can re-apply the wet towel or sand those tiny bits off afterwards.

Once it's all gone, you are ready to sand and paint

Remove your hardware and get to it. I used Algonquin – a great taupe colour reminiscent of the granite found in northern Ontario. It requires no top coat, is self leveling and has a smooth matte finish!

At this point, it was nice, but not enough for my new bedroom. So I added a dry brush coat of Fusion’s metallic paint – Matthew Mead Studio Metallic Paint in Champagne colour. To dry brush is to add a thin layer of paint so that the undercoat shows through. It’s a simple method of dipping your brush into the paint and then dabbing off most of the paint onto a paper towel or cloth.

Apply the metallic paint with long strokes parallel to the wood grain. Wipe off any excess and let it dry.

Once it was dry, it was sanded to distress the edges and smooth down any brushstrokes.

The top will get a lot of use as a nightstand, so it's sealed with a matte polyurethane finish. I used two coats to be safe. The Fusion Mineral Paint doesn't need any protectant, I was just being overly cautious as my nightstands always have a glass of water and books on them.

Before - dirty, peeling BUT free! After - I love it!! The backdrop is my curtain fabric. You can see how the metallic paint picks up on the sheen in the fabric.