From "Like Whoa!" to "Whoa!"

When my coworker's mother reached out and asked if I could refinish this nightstand for her, I knew that it would take a ton of sanding. It also needed a lot of wood conditioner since the wood was almost brittle from the flaking latex paint.

I stripped the piece using Citristrip. I then sanded the entire piece. For the smaller nooks, I used small screwdrivers as mini scrapers to get all the paint out.

The piece is made of low quality pine, so even though the owner of the piece wanted a white wash effect, I couldn't do it because the wood grain underneath was incredibly knotty.

Because of the quality of the wood, I found that the original latex paint was falling off most of the piece, so priming was imperative to be able to get paint to stay attached. I primed with my favorite Bin primer. Though it is a shellac product, I didn't need to seal in smells. After each application of paint, it's imperative to sand the piece to get rid of imperfections.

I then used my favorite all in one paint, Heirloom Traditions, in Almond. I used my paint sprayer because I knew that getting enough paint on the piece would be challenging.

Using a sprayer for such a small job, may be overkill, but it makes life so much easier as you move into the nooks and crannies of a piece

The owner of the piece wanted something "traditional, yet fun." I decided to use prepasted, paintable wall paper for the sides and backs.

The paper is super easy to install. You cut the paper to size and soak it for about 30 seconds. You then put it in place and smooth it out as you see fit.

A couple of tricks:

- Cut the paper as close to size as possible, once it's wet, it's more difficult to manipulate and can tear easily

- I caulked the areas where the paper met a piece of trim. This helped seal the little tears that I inadvertently made.

- Wait until the paper is fully dry before painting.

Finishing Touches

The owner wanted to keep some of the original hardware, so I found some other hardware that matched the original drawers. The color wasn't correct, but I used Rub'n Buff to find a match.

The end product is pretty sweet!