DIY Furniture Fix-up Before&After

I've been working on re-doing the bedroom, and have been dying to have matching night stands. One is white, one is brown... they were totally different and driving me nuts. Furniture is expensive though, I was looking at an average of $100/each for brand new ones!
I kept looking on Craigslists and Used Victoria, but to no avail, most people were only selling one, or mismatched ones (guess they were just like me... tired of the mismatch!)
Finally, I had found some online at IKEA that were $50. When I discovered, however, that there was no IKEA in Greater Victoria (doi!), I wanted to go with shipping, only $50 extra. That meant $150 for two, matching night stands, delivered to my door. I was going to do it, it seemed like a good deal!

But I couldn't. I'm no good at spending money. I'll wander around Thrift Stores and find things I like and decide that "x" items are still too expensive for my liking. I'm sure anyone else would just be happy with their find. I wanted to save that money. And I resolved while starring at them one day, that I was going to do it, I was going to attempt to paint that brown one white. 

A coupe of trips to Rona, and I was set... sanding paper, paintbrush and furniture paint. I sanded it down while Beans tried attacking the sand paper (careful not to get it in your eyes or inhale the dust, so I had to close him away). I could tell that it was ready once the area I was sanding would lose it's shine and would become matte. 

Next, I painted. Curt's dad used to paint houses, so thank goodness Curt was around. He reminded me to paint all of my strokes the same way. 

 Beans sleeping in the drawer 

After the first coat, I was grumpy. The man at Rona had said two coats would do the trick. It didn't look like that. You could still really see the brown through the white. No good. I persevered though, and after the second coat, it still didn't have a nice totally white coat. A third coat  was needed, but after that, it looked great.

   

Next I took some scrap scrapbook paper I had from a project I did for work, and cut it to fit into the drawer. Some scraps were tiny, so I made a funky little design with them. A little glue, and voila, a pretty drawer, and a white dresser. 

So how much did I save? Well, the nightstand had been my parents, and I got it when I first moved out, and needed furniture. So that was free. 

The sand paper was about $4 for a pack of 3. I only used one. So that's about $1.33

The paint was $20.00, but I used between 1/4-1/3 of it, so that's about $5 - $7

And the paint brush was $7. And it will be used over and over. 

The paper was free. 

So instead of spending $150, I only spent about $15.33 and got a spruced up, matching-enough nightstand. I encourage everyone to try to fix something up yourself. It takes more time, but I think the savings were worth it. 

And now with all the left overs, I can redo the other bedroom furniture, which just isn't nearly as white now, compared to my finished project. 

Stay tuned to see the before and after of the bedroom!