diy projects

Restoring Thrifted Furniture : Nightstand DIY

Posted on April 18, 2016

I’m excited to finally share the finished product of my faux bamboo nightstand DIY. Restoring thrifted furniture isn’t really all that difficult! It just takes a little elbow grease and the right products. If you follow me on Instagram, I shared the before image of these vintage beauties a few months ago (in case you missed it…see below). Sarah was nice enough to keep her eyes open for me while thrifting and picked up these nightstands for under $30 a piece! I am so happy with how they turned out.

To begin, I removed the hardware and sanded both nightstands with a power sander until they were nice and smooth. I used a piece of 120 grit sandpaper on the drawers because of the faux woven texture. I made sure to wipe down each piece with a wet cloth and vacuum to remove all the dust when finished. Then, I primed the nightstands with two coats of white Valspar primer. I used a paint brush and Sherwin Williams multi-purpose water based acrylic primer for the drawers.

Next, I applied three coats of Valspar lacquer paint, letting dry and wiping clean between each coat. Finally, I applied a spoonful of Minwax furniture polish with a cheesecloth to really make the lacquer shine!

The hardware was the tricky part of this project! Originally, the pulls were pretty tarnished so I tried to salvage them by using Nevr-Dull magic wading polish, some spray paint, and rub-n-buff. In the end I was pretty unhappy with the color. Replacing the hardware wasn’t really an option since they were custom to the piece. I started doing some research and found this helpful article on Apartment Therapy. Although the experiment worked well, I will say it took me about and hour and a half to remove three layers of paint from the hardware. Also, I highly suggest using a thrift store pot rather than one of your nice ones – lesson learned. I topped them off with more wadding polish and they were as good as new (thankfully)!

I love mixing old and new, and I enjoy making old pieces new again. I couldn’t be happier with our new nightstands – they fit the space so much better than my previous ones and they were a fraction of the cost of similar items I was finding online. Is anyone out there getting ready to try a furniture DIY of their own? I would love to hear about your upcoming projects!