before & after: nightstand

Okay, the quality of these pictures is really bad, but I wanted to show this little before and after. This is the very first antique I bought. It's a nightstand from the 1940's or 50's. So maybe it's more of a "vintage" piece than an antique, but you get the idea:) I bought it when I was in college, and it was a very yellowy shade of white. It had seen better days and definitely needed a face lift. The only problem: I was a bit misguided in my attempts to fix it up.

Because I was 19, my tastes weren't exactly refined yet, and my entire room was hot pink, purple, green and gold. I thought it only made sense to paint the nightstand green and gold! So off I went to Home Depot to start my very first refurbishing project. I bought sandpaper, paintbrushes and paint. I went out onto my little apartment porch and got to work, and I remember my dear friend Jillian keeping me company while I worked. Believe it or not, I was actually pleased with how it turned out.

It stayed with me until my senior year of college, when I moved into my sorority house with Jill. Then it went to the attic of my parent's house, until I was packing up a U-Haul to head west with the Mr. :) By then I had realized that I hadn't exactly made it the classiest-looking nightstand, but I knew I could fix it up.


Again, the quality of this picture is awful. For some reason it looks very shiny, when it's actually painted with a flat black paint. Oh well, you can still see the improvement!