Farmhouse Nightstand Makeover: Why Red is Dead and White is Right

$2.50
2 Hours
Easy
Farmhouse style. It's all the rage these days. How about you? Are you ready for a touch of farmhouse today? For this makeover, no one asked me to find the absolute saddest looking nightstand on the planet. I just did this on my own. This little guy was rescued from the bathroom in the basement. I don’t eeeeeven want to think about what it’s been through over 20-plus years of boys.
After a good scrubbing, this is what's left of the original finish. Notice the hardware was rusting --- and believe it or not --I opted to leave it this way.
The plan was to paint it a nice red using home-made chalk paint. But after it was painted, I decided to distress the edges.
At this point, I absolutely loved the piece, but the red made the nightside look too small and too dark to sit beside the queen-sized bed. I tried to accessorize around it, but to no avail. The red just made the nightstand look too squatty for the space. So I decided there was nothing else to do except to go all Huck Finn on this piece with white wash.
After all, farmhouse can be layers of chippy goodness. Right? Well, in this case.....let's just say that theory was a total disaster. The piece looked even more out of place in the space. So...for the third refinish......I painted the piece in a creamy white chalk paint.
And from my reader responses, the third time was the charm. The creamy white lightened, brightened, and made the piece cohesive with the rest of the space.
For more information about the products and refinishing techniques OR to see more photos (the full room) in both the red and white colors, please click the link to my blog post.
This particular post will also have links to other bloggers who refinished pieces in either red, white, or blue for May's themed furniture makeover.


As always, it's a pleasure to share projects with you. Thanks so much for sharing a few minutes of your day with me.
Susie @ The Chelsea Project Blog
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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