here are the before picts: these were old hotel nightstands. found them on CL for $5 ea. they would serve as the base for my new nightstands.
I cleaned, sanded and added wood filler to any holes. I also added wood filler to one of the bottom corners but I didn't really need to considering I was planning to add some height to them. I bought a 4x4 from Home depot (HD) and had them cut my 8 pieces to size with a larger piece left over. cost: $14. I believe they were each 5" long although I only added 2inches in height. the untreated wood was more costly than the pressure treated one but I was told for indoor projects not to use the pressure treated wood. I used gorilla wood glue (amazing stuff) to keep the new footing in place and then screwed them in place. the first table i put the screws on the inside bottom but they didn't lay flush so i tried wood filler but you could still see where the screw heads were. the second table i put the screws in from the side where they would not be visible.
once the new feet were on it was time for the trim. the blogger said hers was 7" but i couldn't find any that size for the life of me. HD has a pay by the foot trim and was told to get a foot more for mistakes and boy was he right. Cutting 45 degree angles is not easy!! I don't have power tools so I purchased a miter saw kit at walmart. I only did the 3 sides since the back would be against the wall. this trim was floor trim and came pre-primed which took one step out of day, yay! I bought a smaller trim for the top to make a place for the glass/mirror I was planning to put on top. Wood filler was used to fill in any gaps between the joints. The cost of the trim was surprisingly expensive as well. Later on I found trim for a fraction of the cost at the habitat restore. not only are the products cheap the money is used for a good cause. If you have one near you I highly recommend it. once the trim was on i primed the rest of the table. If you are painting something dark then save yourself the hassle and use grey primer! on parts where there was white primer i found myself having to put on more coats of paint.
For the drawers i added some trim i found at the habitat restore and new acrylic handles (the last ones there!) I love crystal everything so if i could incorporate it somehow i was going to. the hardest part was deciding on the colors and designs at the end. started out with a silver trim but then changed my mind and made it brown. Again just used gorilla glue to put the trim on nothing more. the handles fit perfectly! i spray painted the drawers and backing almond and painted the rest espresso brown in semi gloss because they didn't have gloss! i then added one to two coats of left over lacquer to give it more shine.
once the body was done i began to work on the top the other blogger used bead board but i originally wanted to add a mirror (cost: $25/ea) then i saw a bronze mirror and thought that would be cool (cost $40/ea) so since the cost was too much for me i decided to go another route. I figured i would make a design on the tops and then just cover with plexiglass! the plexiglass was $25 for a big enough piece for both tables but I had to cut it myself (not easy!) the cutting tool HD sells sucks! i ended up using the miter saw to finish the cuts after my first attempt ended in a broken piece :-( Also note that if you can save one side of the trim for last because i ended having to take one off and re-position it so that everything would lay flush. what a pain in the butt!!
i covered the original table with 3/16 inch board (cost:$5) as this would serve as my platform for my design. i then primed it and painted it. this is where it got very messy and frustrating. I planned to paint the plastic with mirror spray paint so i tried it on a small left over piece first. it didn't turn out as i planned so that idea was scrapped.
then i thought well maybe i can stencil a metallic stencil on the board and put the plastic on top since it would be easier to repaint the board than to do anything on the plastic.
I couldn't decide on which stencil to use and what colors. i planned to use a bronze base with metallic silver or almond stencils but.... apparently I'm not any good at stenciling and you could see where one piece ended and the other began. it just didn't blend in well. soooo I decided to paint the whole thing metallic silver with just a design in the middle with our initials on ea table. the letters I had were too big and like i mentioned before my stenciling skills were bad so i didn't want to risk it. I did what any sane person would do i resorted to dollar store decals!! i wanted to make my husband's table manly and mine more feminine. the metallic silver drove me crazy trying to get a nice smooth coat on (did i mention I'm a perfectionist) so it was repainted at least 4-5 times until i gave up.
and here are the finished products!
I hope this inspires others to tackle any project that may seem impossible. a pair of nightstands like these may cost over $100 ea but i completed mine with just about $55 for both! I took me a few weeks with trying to juggle work, a toddler and the fatigue of being pregnant so take your time if you can especially when waiting for the paint to dry! hope you enjoyed and please comment or ask questions! have a blessed day.
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