One of my favorite parts of the movie is when the main character, Ralphie, gets a special gift from his Aunt.
We laugh every time.
Equally laughable, was Husband's new nightstand. At least while it still donned it's own pink hue. We first spotted it at one of my favorite thrift stores. The guys there were unloading several small tables off the truck. They noticed us looking through them and asked what we were looking for. I explained that we needed a small nightstand for my husband's side of the bed. One of the workers pointed us in the direction of the pink nightmare and told us that it used to be a humidor.
Husband hated it, I thought it just needed a few coats of black paint. I mean, how cool to say that you could store cigars in your humidor nightstand!?
In the end I won. And for $10 we took the pink nightmare home. Where it sat for almost 2 months, hideously pink, in the corner of our bedroom.
Finally, I decided that there had been plenty of dreaming and planning here on the blog and that I should probably DO something. So here's a quick little DIY for ya.
To prep, I laid out a drop cloth in to work on, shook and stirred my quart of black paint, and set out the two foam brushes I planned on using. Foam brushes won't leave brush marks. I chose regular satin paint over spray paint partly because it was winter and partly because I feel like I have a little more control over the finished product with a can of paint.
I also put in a Harry Potter movie for entertainment value - this is a very important step you won't want to skip.
I started with the table upside down to make sure everything would get a good coating. This also meant that when it was done, I could just move it back into the bedroom while it was still a little tacky.
The hardware had been painted pink too and I didn't want to paint it black. I read somewhere that you could soak hardware in vinegar and the paint would come right of, but I couldn't get the hardware off the table. Impatience got the best of me and I used the screw driver (and a butter knife) to scrape off the pink paint. As photographed, I also tried nail polish remover. It didn't work in case you were wondering.
I scratched it in several places pretty badly. I may not be the best DIY-er... But I figure that it'll hardly be noticeable in the corner of our bedroom. And if it's really getting to me I can always just paint them.
So once I had three, yes three, coats of paint on the undersides of the table, I flipped it right side up. I did another three coats on anything that was pink, leaving the area around the hardware unpainted...
For another month. Did I mention that I may not be so great at DIYing?
Once I got back to the project, I used a small brush to go around the hardware. Any paint that got on the hardware I just scraped off with my screwdriver/butter knife combo once it dried.
For a little added touch of masculinity, I added some silver, almost mirrored contact paper to the inside.
The result?
'Tis a thing of beauty.
Husband is happy and has a place to keep his glasses and phone at night, Wife is happy that Husband isn't reaching over her in the morning to get his stuff. We both like that it feels vintage-y but it also matches the other finishes in the room and the overall style. He'll still need some kind of lamp - I'm thinking a floor lamp, or small chandelier. Are two chandeliers too many? What would you do?
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