Nightstand Re-Do

Hey Hey!  Welcome to yet another posting about a nightstand re-do.  Nightstands are fairly easy for me to come by at garage sales, but unfortunately, they are not so easy to come by in pairs.  So, today, I have for you another loner nightstand.  He doesn't mind though...he kinda likes being an only child (the nightstand that is...not my little furry helper...he wants a sister to play with). I digress.  Back to the nightstand.

I am horrible about remembering to take before pictures, but I'm working on that.  Lucky for you, I remembered to take one of this guy.

Okay, so maybe it's not a "true" before, but it's in the works.  This is what it looked liked after I took the hardware off and took the drawers out before I actually did any work.

And here it is all finished and refreshed.  For this particular piece, I sanded down the entire thing using my Dewalt orbital sander with a 120 grit, followed by a 220 grit.  For the top, I decided to stain it, so I ended up sanding it all the way down to bare wood.  Sometimes, I use stripper for this, but to me it generally makes a bigger mess and ends up taking me long in the end.  For this piece, I used my sander with an 80 grit to remove the old finish and get down to natural wood.  I used a 220 grit to smooth it all up.

I wiped the entire piece down with a damp rag to remove dirt and sawdust.  For some reason I usually paint pieces first and then stain, so that's what I did.  I primed the drawers and the bottom with SmartPrime from Benjamin Moore and used an antique white looking paint that was an oops paint from Lowe's (took 2 coats to get the look I wanted). Love me some oops paint!!

For the hardware, I used the original hardware...because let's face it...I'm a cheap-o!  If the original hardware looks good with the overall look of my piece, I use it.  Of course, that is if it's all there to start with.  Generally my pieces are missing hardware (again, because I'm cheap and to get cheap pieces, this is something that you just deal with).  Let me digress once more....even though I'm cheap...I DO NOT buy particle board pieces...my pieces need to be solid wood or otherwise, I pass them up and they feel no love from me!  Oh yeah...back to hardware.  So I cleaned up the hardware and sprayed it with oil-rubbed bronze spray paint (one of my most favorite spray paints).  This totally transforms the look for hardware...especially the bronzy, goldy, cheap looking older hardware.

For the top, I stained it in one coat of Minwax stain in Dark Walnut.  I usually put on my stain with a piece of old sock or rag.  I dip in the stain and rub it on in the direction of the grain.  After finishing with the application, I use the portion of the rag/sock that is still clean and wipe off any excess.  After the entire piece dried, I distressed the base (using my sander with a 220 grit).  To complete it all I applied a coat of Minwax Paste Wax in Natural as directed on the can.  As a side note, you can pick up the Natural color wax at Lowe's (I think Home Depot too), but I can't seem to find the dark wax nearly as easy, so I order that through my Benjamin Moore store.

Hope you like this little guy!  I took him to my booth at De'France and he didn't last long.  This look is pretty popular here in Florida.   One final side note:  We're making the most of Florida while we're here, but looking forward to the day when the Oklahoma/Texas are is where we call "home" once again. :)