Bedside Table

Three years ago when we bought our cottage it suddenly dawned on us that we had to furnish a full cottage and a guest cottage and had no money to do it! It's amazing what you can get for free. I will write a post one day with all of the items we were given and how we sourced them, but for now I wanted to show you the before and after of this cute little bedside table. Unfortunately the pictures don't show the full extent of the bad condition it was in, but it was free and we all love that, don't we?

When I was sanding the piece I found the note below taped to the top of one of the cubbies.  I had to put it back in once the piece was finished as it's part of the history of the table. I will try to remember in 10 or 20 years to look up this little girl and see what she is doing for a living.

I hadn't heard about chalk paint so thought I had to sand it all down to paint it and as I started sanding I realized what a great solid wood piece it was and it became harder and harder to convince my husband that it should be painted. In the end we compromised and only painted the cubbies to save me the work of sanding those. 

I used two coats of "Colonial Oak" coloured stain. That was okay, but not the colour I was looking for so I then added a coat of "Special Walnut". It didn't go as dark as I would have liked, but the wood seemed to be "full" of stain and wasn't absorbing anymore so I settled on this colour. I did two coats of Polyacyrlic all over and four on the top (I am obsessed about protecting the wood on pieces I refinish and don't even get me started on coasters, I have them everywhere!) I used homemade chalk paint on the cubbies and two coats of polyacrylic on those after to protect them.

 

 

What is your favourite freebie project?

 

 

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A Pinch of Joy      The Dedicated House        Crafty, Scrappy, Happy         An Original Belle
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