REFINISHED SIDE TABLES DIY | THRIFTED FURNITURE MAKEOVER | FURNITURE FLIP TUTORIAL

Prepare yourself for another post in our Crafty Chaos series...

When my sister bought her house a couple of years ago, she picked up a second-hand dresser that she refinished and now uses as her TV stand (see before and after pictures below).

Since then, she's been trying to find a set of second-hand side tables or nightstands with a similar vibe for that same room — something to go next to the couches. Well, after years of (very sporadic) searching, we finally found some! We picked up these beauties at the Springville DI for $20 each.

(Please don't mind the messy garage corner — organizing the garage is a project for another day!)

We loved that the chunky details and unique hardware felt reminiscent of the dresser.

Here's a quick rundown of how we refinished these!

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We started with a good cleaning. This included getting all of the dust out of the crevices and removing the price stickers — plus the goo they left behind. (We love Goo Gone for this — we picked up a bottle at Home Depot a couple of years back and it’s still going strong!)

We then pulled out the drawers and removed the hardware, setting it aside for later. 

She decided to keep the wood look on the top but stain it a darker color. To start that process, we roughed up the surface with a quick once-over with the sander — and then cleaned it again.

Next, we taped off and covered the tops in preparation for using a spray paint primer on the rest of each table. We used painter's tape and masking paper to protect the surface (both leftover from previous projects — yay for using supplies you already have!).

With the tops protected, we primed the sides, fronts, and drawers using Zinsser spray paint primer.

Once that had dried, it was time to stain the tops.

General Finishes Carbon Gray Gel Stain has been her best friend over the past couple of years — she's used it on  bathroom cabinets, handrails, and even the top of her second-hand coffee table. So it was a no-brainer to pull out the Carbon Gray again for this project.

General Finishes' website has great instructions and videos for applying their gel stain. We did three coats — applying with a foam brush, wiping down with cloth rags, and lightly sanding after each coat dried. (The picture above shows the color after the first coat.)

After adequate drying time (about three days — time that was clearly used to hit up the local plant nursery), it was time to apply a few coats of polyurethane to the newly stained surface.

While she wears by General Finishes gel stains...she does not swear by their top coats (it's a sensitive subject). So used a Varathane polyurethane instead — one she already had on hand from other projects. The one used here was a water-based polyurethane with a gloss finish. 

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With the tops finished, it was time to paint the drawers and bases — my favorite part!

She chose Behr Green Meets Blue in a satin finish. 

It was a beautiful day, so we actually took the drawers one at a time to the patio table to paint them. We used a craft paint brush to help get into all the nooks and crannies — and there were plenty.

We left the tables themselves on the garage floor and painted those there, using a 2-inch brush (her go-to paint brush for most painting projects). 

After giving everything a few days to cure, we gently laid each side table on its back side so we could add felt strips along the bottom — protecting the LVP floors they'll be sitting on from scratches or scuffs. 

We also reattached the hardware at this point.

It's so nice to now have a place during movie nights to set drinks — and to tuck away remotes and even store the cross-stitch she likes to work on while watching movies!

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