The New Nightstand

I know, I know. "A nightstand? That's not interesting at all!". However, this needed to be done - my craft room was severely lacking in storage and I was finding that I had to throw all my potential projects in a corner on the floor. Not ideal. So... I bought storage. But I didn't just make it all easy peasy on myself and go out and buy a new piece. Oh no. I had to have something for the blog.

So I found this little beauty on one of my shopping trips at Salvation Army, and once I saw the $7.99 price tag, I just couldn't pass it up.

Sorry it's a bit dark. This was taken in my garage around 6pm last night. Stupid time change. This was a nightstand but it was a bit too awkward and a bit too big to be put anywhere, but those two doors open up to a very large storage space. I knew I could put it to good use - but it certainly needed a bit of TLC.

First thing I did was a nice coat of spray paint. Everything in my craft room is white so I wanted it to fit right in.

Personally, I think it looks better already! So then I was thinking about the possible uses of this nightstand. I am all for multi-purpose pieces, so I thought it was a perfect height for a seat. Just to set the scene: for all these projects, I have been working in my craft room that contains two tables: a work table (a 6ft foldable table) and my sewing table (a desk my dad for me in high school). While working on projects, I would have to drag my chair from one table to another and back again everytime I changed tasks. It was time for a different approach. So I decided to make a cushion for the top. So I went out and purchased myself a slab of MDF board, 2" foam and some fabric.

The fabric. I knew I wanted orange, and in the "Home Decor" fabric selection in Joann Fabrics, there were only two choices. Joann Fabrics fail. Anyway, I had this choice and I had a bright orange, Hawaiian print choice. I think I certainly chose the better of the two.

At this point, I sucked up to the hubby to get the circular saw out, which actually didn't take that much persuasion, and cut me an octagon from the MDF board. Then I took out the bread knife and cut the foam to the same size. (I read on other blogs that cutting foam with a bread knife was easy. Easy? Yes. Even? Hell no.)

So I didn't want to just sit on a foam for my cushion, so I decided to wrap it up in some of the batting I had for some previous table runner projects.

With the batting, I just covered all sides of the foam and did the sides like Christmas wrapping, then got out my handy dandy glue gun and glued  it on all sides. This resulted with quite a few glue strings all over my craft room and a handful of burned fingertips, but it got the job done.

Then, I ironed out the fabric. I'm sure you've noticed that I have not mentioned this activity in any of my other projects and this is for good reason - I hate ironing, and my ironing board is 2 feet long. It's both annoying, and takes forever to get a garment done; I'd just rather have crumpled clothes. For the seat cushion though, I figured a fold down the center wouldn't quite look effortless and professional (ya know, 'cause that's obviously what I go for in my projects...). Then I placed the foam on top of the wrong-side-up fabric and the MDF board on top of the foam. From there, it was just a matter of getting my Christmas present wrapping skills to work - gather, fold, and staple. Except, my stapler that I am in love with and typically has monster power (which my husband proved when accidentally stapling his jeans to his skin in college) did not penetrate the MDF board. Damn. In pure laziness, and because it was still sitting there from the batting and foam, I tried to glue the fabric down with the hot glue gun. And. It. Worked. BONUS! Nightstand was painted, cushion was done, it was just a matter of putting all the pieces together.

 Ta da!

It does need another coat of spray paint, and then I'll put my new knob pulls on all snug like, and then either wood glue or screw the cushion on, but otherwise, I think it'll look pretty awesome in the craft room. For only about $35 bucks! And it'll be really nice not to have to drag the chair around the room after myself, as well as not have weird old lady clothes hanging around in the corners making people ask questions.

Few things on the mental checklist: 1) Furniture is rather fun to redo - and taking a break from being the subject of my pictures is pretty nice. 2) Use coupons and never pay full price for anything at Joanne's. Original prices: fabric - $10.99 and foam - $14 or 16 (I lost the receipt). With coupons - that combine - my purchase price was $10.80. I get so many coupons in the mail and in my e-mail, there's no excuse for me to pay full price.