Nightstand Makeover

My new room of focus lately is our bedroom.  I can't wait to paint the walls in there because I am tired of staring at these paint swatches:

 I will be painting one wall at a time as I am simultaneously working on making over some of the furniture pieces in the room.  I decided to start with the nightstands.  Very few pieces of furniture in our house are new, most are a variety of thrifted, consignment, or hand-me-down items.  When we moved into this house we had to find nightstands.  In our rental house there was only one little nook that could fit our queen bed so we had no room on the sides for nightstands.  I found this lovely pair of nightstands at a consignment furniture store for $20 a piece.  They weren't much to look at but they are mostly solid wood and I like the shape and size of them. We have been using them as is for over a year now and they are great functionally but it was time for a change in appearance.

 

I decided to paint them since I am also planning on redoing an armoire and a dresser which are both laminate.  I chose a nice dark brown, Valspar Brown Velvet, and bought a gallon in satin finish.  I also decided to do a fun stencil pattern in that faux leather square in the middle of the top.  I started by sanding it down with my new handy dandy palm sander.

After sanding, I cleaned it off and then I primed it with Zinsser 123 Bullseye primer.  I like that primer because it is thick and sticks well to many materials.

Then I painted two coats of the Valspar Brown Velvet on all of the nightstand except the part where I would be painting the stencil pattern.

I chose two Folk Art acrylic craft paints for the stencil design on the top: metallic taupe and french vanilla.  I covered the whole area with the french vanilla.

I bought this geometric pattern stencil at Michaels.  Then I stenciled using a foam brush and the metallic taupe paint.

I found this drawer knob at Hobby Lobby. 

Here are the finished nightstands in the bedroom. It is definitely a huge improvement.  I love the classy and unique look of them now and it makes me even more excited to paint the walls and trim in this room.

Next up on the bedroom list is redoing my armoire and painting the wall and trim next to my closet.