I had been wanting to replace our nightstands for some time. When we first moved in to our apartment it was a scramble to fill the gaps of what we needed and my old nightstands did not fit in our awkward bedroom layout. I went with an inexpensive Ikea option with the intent to quickly change them out, but soon found other bigger purchases kept trumping new nightstands. We can not have our bed centered on the room because we didn’t want to cover up half of the window with our headboard, this makes one side much smaller and harder to find nice matching nightstands.

I had envisioned a beautiful natural wood farmhouse style nightstand to compliment all of the white in our room. I looked for months and couldn’t find anything in my price range that worked well. A few weeks ago I went to the Pottery Barn warehouse in Alameda and found this nightstand. It was the exact style I wanted, the perfect size and majorly discounted. The only issue – it was bright yellow! I decided it wouldn’t be too hard to sand it down and stain it a natural wood finish.

I am by no means a DIY-er and actually loathe projects like this because they never turn out right. Surprise this didn’t either! After about two days of sanding to remove all traces of yellow paint I went to stain the nightstand and the wood turned a horrible reddish color. I could have stained it really dark, but Daniel suggested it would look better painted and then we could just paint an existing cabinet to match and use on the other side.

This whole project would have taken no time at all if I just painted it from the begining as I wouldnt have had to sand it down. I decided on the color Ashwood Moss by Benjamin Moore and I couldn’t be happier with the result. I love the dark color in our light bedroom and even though it didn’t turn out the way I had envisioned, I think this works even better.

{shop: Nightstand, Lamp, Drapes, Drapery Rod, Headboard, Basket, Candle}

Photos by Torrey Fox