Crafting A Bedside Table

While remodeling a bedroom for my daughter, I began looking for a bedside table, but the price of most new ones were quite outside my budget limit! I wanted something with a little bit of storage, but those cost in the $200 to $400 range. More than I wanted to spend!

I happened upon this small dresser at a second-hand shop and snatched it up for only $25! It did need some mending however.

First up, I needed to repair the top, which was the only part that really needed to be redone (other than replacing the knobs). The drawers and door were in good shape – nice dovetail joints and good, sturdy legs. The round wooden knobs that came on the piece were also chipped and one was broken completely in half and missing!

The top had a crack along it and a gouge in one corner. Since I knew I was going to need to paint this piece after all those repairs, it fit in well with what I wanted to do in the room. I sanded the crack in the top a bit to smooth some of the rough edges and then filled it, as well as the gouge in the corner, with wood putty. I did end up filling these areas a couple of times since wood putty tends to shrink as it dries. Now for a final sanding with fine grit sand paper and I was ready for the paint.

I had some dark teal paint leftover from painting a wall behind a built-in daybed in my daughter’s room and really wanted a little more of that teal color in the room, so I opted to paint the dresser in that color. I put one coat of the teal paint on the dresser and allowed it to dry. It didn’t look too great at this point! But I knew it would get better with more coats of paint applied.

Kitchen Bestsellers

I lightly sanded and then applied a second coat of paint. Ah, this was better. I was liking it already, but I wasn’t finished yet!

After the second coat of paint dried really well, I applied Annie Sloan dark wax and allowed it to dry. Next came buffing the dresser with a clean, soft cotton rag. I added new handles and it was done!