Nightstands and Acc(id)ent(al) Tables

In the ongoing saga of our master bedroom, the next priority was getting new nightstands so that our lovely Ikea ones can move back to the green room where they belong.

Bedroom with Borrowed Ikea Nightstands [cringe].

I shopped around a bit, and was disappointed to discover that nightstands are on the list of things that are really expensive. [I'm not sure why I'm still shocked to discover that furniture is expensive, every single time.]. Anyhoo- I found promise in the area of unfinished furniture- which is by definition, made of real wood that just needs to be put together and finished. We did some searching, and landed upon these guys from Amazon. At around $100 each, they seemed like a great option, with clean lines, storage and solid construction.

Once they arrived, I quickly got to work on the first table. It took an hour or so to stain, then I let it dry overnight. This time I used a small foam brush to apply the stain, and a rag to wipe the excess off. When I was building the bookcase, I applied the stain with a rag. Both methods look the same in the end, but this one seemed to waste a lot less stain, which saves me money and was less of a mess to clean up.

Unloading all the pieces in the basement

All the outside-facing pieces with a coat of stain

It took a couple hours to put it together the next morning. I, for one, enjoy putting together furniture like this, where all you need is a screwdriver and a little patience to decode the instruction pictures. Like a puzzle, only useful. Then I added a second coat of stain to get the spots I missed in the first coat and even it out.

Everything put together with one more coat of stain

Then, after a day or so of drying, I added a coat of polyurethane to protect it and switched out the knobs for something nicer.

Once it was all together we noticed a few things:

a) The color is great.

b) The construction is solid, and it feels sturdy.

c) It's really big. In fact, it's too big. Now that I've stained it though, it's clearly not returnable [The harsh downside of unfinished furniture].

So- important lesson learned today: Before you buy furniture- you MUST measure the space where it will go and see if it will work. Tape it out on the floor- hold something at the expected height- do whatever it takes to illustrate exactly how big the thing will be before you buy.  

So the old nightstands wait a little longer and the new wanna-be nightstand goes down in the fireplace room. It actually fits nicely in the nook of the stairs, and fills the much-needed purpose of a key-holding, mail-sorting, charging station. We were thinking of putting a liquor cabinet here, but may have to reconsider.

New Mail-Sorting Station in the Fireplace Room



Fireplace room gets furniture, and we get a mail-sorting station. Two big wins, despite our mistake. We got lucky on this one, but the lesson is learned.