We've painted a LOT of furniture lately.

We've painted a LOT of furniture lately.

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• 10.22.2012

Get ready for lost of house posts this week! Have lots to share with you. With all the house projects and decorating going on, and with rushing for the housewarming party a few weeks ago, we've painted a LOT of cheap furniture lately. Particularly nightstands. ;)

I shared the little table spray paint project I did and am very happy with, but we had such a shortage of horizontal surfaces, as my parents like to say (usually in reference to collecting clutter...) that I seriously had my lamp on the floor next to the bed, and my books and magazines and glasses all splayed out next to it, which was seriously annoying. The guest room was depressingly empty, and there was nowhere near the front door for a lamp or place to put a purse... all of which sort of leads to feeling like your life is in chaos and the simplest things are missing. ;)

So I went a little Craigslist crazy in the weeks before the move and the housewarming party, and found the following scores...

This little night stand for $5. Broken handle, but I spray-primed it (just in case, old surface...), spray painted it white, and gave it some new handles from Fred Meyer. Not sure where it'll go in the end, but for now it sits near the front door and has a lamp on it. We have a little corner it fits perfectly into until we get the perfect shoe-taking-off bench!

I actually bought the $5 nightstand for use as a nightstand, but went back and forth on what to use for our nightstands and the nightstand in the guest room. Then I found this matching set of nearly identical little nightstands on Craigslist for $30. I do like matching nightstands!!

So I bought 'em, washed 'em down with TSP, and spray painted them this pretty pale green pistachio color. I wanted pale minty aqua, but there are only so many choices of Krylon spray paint, and I didn't have time for real-painting and the surface was so smooth, I didn't want brush strokes. I wanted a really pale color, so pistachio it is!! The bedroom colors aren't nailed down yet, anyway. I also added some gold spray paint to the handles to freshen them up and cover up the chipping ivory paint in some of the dips. Here's mine...

Husband has, erm, styled his a little differently than mine... at least the lego storm trooper alarm clock is white, matches everything else, haha!

So now we have matching nightstands in the bedroom! And an extra in the downstairs, it turns out.

Also not really knowing what exactly I wanted it for, I bought an Ikea Rast dresser on Craigslist for $10--I love all the DIYs out there for this little lightweight wooden dresser. Inspired by this Apartment Therapy Rast makeover and this Design*Sponge one and loads of others, I wanted to do the two-tone look and rather than stain the pine, I used some dark brown paint we had left over from an old dresser-painting project. And used the high gloss white of the baseboards, and bought some little gold knobs... and voila!!

It looks great in the guest room. I love Rast dressers as nightstands--the straight lines are so simple and elegant... (in our lovely guest room currently on Apartment Therapy in the Room for Color Contest! "Favorite" it to vote for me! ;) )

Phew, lots of painting--but it's so great to be able to transform bargain pieces with paint and handles and make them fresh and new!!