How To Make A Shabby Nightstand Simply Chic
Sometimes, the best furniture for your home isn’t found at the store, online, or in a family member’s basement. Instead, your best source just might be the side of the road! Whether it’s because they didn’t have room on the moving truck or simply didn’t realize what they had, people all over the world are prone to just leaving pieces of great, classically-constructed furniture on the curb when they move or after a bout of seasonal cleaning. Their loss is YOUR gain! Even if that dresser or nightstand isn’t quite what you were hoping to add to your decor, with a little DIY ingenuity, you can turn anything into a simply chic centerpiece for any room. Case in point? This nightstand transformation, coming to us from Mark Montano in Rumble. He’s demonstrating how to take a simple, two-drawer wooden nightstand – one that’s well-constructed, but a little worse for the wear – and update it for a sleek, modern look that’ll have all your guests asking, “Where did you get that?!” Watch how he does it, then read on for our step-by-step breakdown of the process you can do to any furniture you want.
SHAPPY-TURNED-SIMPLY-CHIC NIGHTSTAND
MATERIALS
- A nightstand (or any other piece of furniture you want to transform)
- Butcher paper
- Crayon or pencil, for tracing
- Fabric, in a pattern and colors matching and/or complementary to your chosen paints
- Americana Decor Satin Enamels in Charcoal Gray (or your favorite wood paint)
- American Decoupage (or your favorite decoupage)
- DecoArt Metallic Lustres in Silver Spark (or your favorite wax metallic finish)
- Craft knife
- Silver paint pen
Visit Make Your Mark! with Mark Montano for more information on this project and Mark’s original instructions.
DIRECTIONS
- Remove the drawers from the nightstand and unscrew the handles. Set the handles aside.
- Tape a sheet of butcher paper to one of the drawers. Using your crayon or pencil, outline the shape of the drawer on the paper. Repeat on the other drawer(s).
- Cut out the traced shapes to create pattern templates for the fabric.
- Pin the paper patterns to the fabric, then cut the fabric to match. Unpin and set the fabric pieces aside for now.
- Paint the nightstand with the Charcoal Gray Americana Decor Satin Enamels (or whatever color or type of wood paint you’ve chosen). Allow to dry completely.
- Apply your chosen decoupage to the front of one of the drawers.
- Find the cut-out fabric that corresponds with the drawer you’ve just decoupaged. Position the fabric on the drawer. Seal it on with a generous amount of decoupage. Repeat with the other drawer(s).
- Rub the Silver Spark Metallic Lustres (or your chosen metallic finish) onto the nightstand’s embellishments.
- Use some more of the Metallic Lustres to accent the legs of the nightstand.
- Finish with the Metallic Lustres by applying it to the drawer handles and any other hardware. Allow everything to dry completely.
- Use the craft knife to poke holes for the drawer handles in the fabric covering the front of the drawers. Screw the handles back into place.
- Line the edges of the fabric with the silver paint pen, and allow to dry.
- Reassemble the nightstand, and enjoy!
How lovely is that?! It looks like a piece you could find in any trendy modern furniture shop, while having the craftsmanship and stability of classic wood furniture construction. Plus, you can apply these ideas and techniques to any piece of furniture with drawers – a dresser, a china cabinet, a desk – or use it to decorate the doors or embellishments of basically any piece. I think I’ll update my coffee and end tables this way!
Now what about YOU? Are you inspired by this “roadside renovation”? Will you give this idea a try and update your nightstands? Have you ever found a piece of furniture on the side of the road? Tell us about your projects and if you give this one a try!
