For Our Special Guests

I'm so happy to tell you that I just finished a makeover on a dresser and nightstand for my guest bedroom.  After I found the super chic poster bed for this room at a local thrift shop [on my lunch break] I knew I could definitely find the perfect dresser and nightstand too!

About a month ago, Rob was randomly searching around the furniture section on Craigs List when he came across a couldn't-be-more-perfect set for our guest bedroom.  The best part about it was that seller literally lived around the corner from us.  Well actually, the best part about it was that we scored both pieces for one hundo dollars- Cha Ching!!!!

Here's what the pieces looked like when we picked up the furniture



These are the draws I removed from the dresser while I was preparing for the sand down



As you can see above, the wood was badly warped from condensation- but nothing a good sanding job wouldn't take care of.





Our first step was to sand all surfaces with an extra coarse 60 sandpaper .



The course 60 sandpaper worked really well to break through the glossy top coat and in roughing up the wood surface.  Once all surfaces were sanded, we used a very fine 180 sandpaper to smooth out the wood and prepare the surface for painting.



When the sanding was complete, and all surfaces were as smooth as a baby's you know what, we wiped everything really well with a tact cloth.  Tact cloths are great beacause they're really sticky and do a very good job in wiping off all the fine wood particles.

Next step was to paint a primer coat- I chose a latex primer because at the time I wasn't in the mood to deal with the messy clean-up involved with an oil based.  We let the primer dry over night. 

Finally, we painted the pieces with two coats of a black semi-gloss paint.  I chose this type of paint because I thought that the added shine of a semi-gloss would give these peices the extra umph they needed.  Also, I used a semi-gloss on my poster bed and I wanted the finishes to match.

And here's how they turned out

All said and done, this very thrifty dresser and nightstand combo cost us $140.00.