Nightstand Makeover

A few weeks ago, my husband (helpfully) mentioned that I should make some time to work on my "to do" list in terms of decorating our home. With work, family and the holiday, most of our nesting had taken a back burner. Too many times I have jumped right into redecorating projects soon after moving and ended up regretting them. I believe, for me, I have to really settle into a space, absorb it and find out how we really use it.

For example, in our last home, we rarely ate in our dining room. These days, we rarely eat anywhere else. Our TV room is not set up for comfortable plopping in front of the tube and vegging out while we mindlessly shovel food into our mouths. I love this.

We also "cut the cord" with the cable company - so except for basic channels - we don't have "cable". This has made a drastic reduction in losing hours flipping for something to watch. I love this, too.

As a result, however, the wall behind out sofa is completely bare. We aren't really in that room all that often. But we have collected vintage maps and atlas pages of all the places we have traveled together. I have been hunting down old frames to give them more character and plan to collage them. But so far, only two have been framed and none have been hung. It's on the list.

Another item on the list was repainting our nightstands. I got a pair of RAST 3 drawer dresser at IKEA a while ago. I basically just slapped white primer on them with the intention of dressing them up. But they remained white for about 5 years. They didn't look bad - they just didn't have any real style. Before Eric and I got married and I was living on my own,  I was going to paint them something sweet and feminine - a buttery yellow with glass knobs.

 Our bedroom is mostly white - a white pintucked comforter, white lightly designed curtains, white walls - and pale, birch dressers. Because of my afore mentioned experiences with diving right in decorating, and because and I have grown and changed in my style, I've developed a taste for clean, crisp white or neutrals and adding bold color through fabrics and accent pieces.

I opted for a bright lime green color. I mean BRIGHT. I was nervous - it's bolder than any color I've ever painted. I also wanted to change the knobs. I am not a fan of painted wooden knobs. They look to "country" for me. Bright lime green is anything but country so I felt they would look out of place. I poked around the hardware store and found some really simple brushed stainless pulls for $2.99 each that I felt would work.

After lightly sanding and washing them down with mild soap and water, I started painting. Since the dressers were already "primed", I opted to not get the primer/paint in one. Big mistake. I found this color to act a lot like red in terms it was a thin color that needed many coats. I think I did 4 or five coats to get a really good finish. I also got a semi-gloss finish - which I am most pleased about. If it wasn't for the noticeable wood grain, they would almost look like metal.

To help hide the brush strokes, I also used Flood Floetrol as an additive to the paint. You can find it near the paint sprayers in Home Depot and runs about $6.99 for a small bottle. I only used a little bit for my quart of paint, so I have plenty left over for future projects. (Instructions are on the bottle depending on how much paint you have.) It was the first time I used it and overall I am happy with the results. Again, the wood grain makes it a tad more difficult to tell, but I don't see a brush stroke at all. (The real test will be when I paint my desk which has no visible grain what-so-ever)

So TAAA DAAAA... the result! I like it! It's amazing what a little color can do to change up a room. I apologize about the messy bed. I hate when the sheet sneaks out the bottom of the comforter. I will have to take a better after photo - maybe a couple of the whole room. What you can't see is all the crap I have collected in those drawers over the last few years. I believe when we moved them, the drawers stayed in, so I didn't even go through them while packing or unpacking.