hello welcome back to my channel katie here from salvaged by k
scott in this video i'm going to be bringing you along with me as i take this
outdated makeup vanity and turn it into two much more practical modern nightstands
this vintage waterfall style vanity was actually up on marketplace for a
few weeks before the owner gave up and set it out on the curb with a big old free sign on it
and it sat there in the beating hot sun and even through a few rainstorms before i picked it up so
if someone locally had wanted to scoop it up and use it in its original configuration
they had more than their fair chance but because not very many people today have the need or the
space for a big vanity like this in their bedrooms when i find pieces like this i like
to split them up into two narrow nightstands there is always a hot market for those but the
first thing that i need to do is get this thing separated into two individual pieces
i grabbed my drill and a bit to start unscrewing things
but that didn't fit of course so i switched out to a shorter robertson screw bit and that still
didn't fit so i went ahead and grabbed our impact driver which is a little shorter than the drill
and the short bit and i was finally able to get in there and reverse the screws out if i
had a stubby robertson screwdriver that would have worked too but i couldn't find one in the toolbox
at this point i was pretty sure that i'd removed all the screws and the rest looked like it was
held together with nails and probably some wood glue so i used my painters tool and a hammer to
gently start prying the drawer towers away from that middle drawer support so that i could at
least see where all of the nails were and slowly but surely with some gentle coaxing of my hammer
i was able to remove the shelf and all of the drawer supports one little piece at a time
now that i had my two individual nightstands i could move on i pried out all of the backer board
nails before i had a chance to catch myself on one and i also removed the crusty rusty old feet
i was left with some holes on the inside of each tower and i decided to start filling those with
some two-part epoxy wood filler this product is very similar to bondo it is fast drying
and super tough stuff you mix together the base putty with a separate cream hardener and then
apply it to your repair and because these are so deep i'm not going to worry about filling
them all in this first pass i just need to get it in there and start filling up these voids
i also have these gaps on the back inside corners this is where the original mirror would have sat
so i went out to our shed and grabbed a piece of scrap wood definitely from another piece of
furniture at some point and i had my husband cut it down to the right size on our table saw
and then we just attached these with a little bit of wood glue and a few nails
when that wood filler was dry i sanded it flush with some 120 grit sandpaper on my surf prep
sander and like i said it's definitely not perfect there were lots of pockets
and bubbles that still needed to be filled and i decided to use some lighter weight
wood filler to cover up those superficial spots instead of mixing up more epoxy filler
i also used my finger to push some filler into the joints on the fronts they're not noticeable now
between the wood grains but once it's painted these gaps are going to stick out like a sore
thumb when that was dry i sanded it smooth again and i used one of these surf prep foam abrasives
to help me mold around all of the curves and trim details surf prep does also sell these
pads in a triangular mouse sander shape and also a round one for random orbital sanders
if you are interested in maybe trying these out but you're not quite ready to
invest in the whole surf prep system that might be something to look into
i started to remove the hardware from the drawers when i realized that i got so excited about taking
this thing apart that i totally forgot to clean it first and obviously that needs to happen so
i used my shop vac to get the loose debris and a few tiny spiders did you see them in there
and then i used some tsp alternative to really scrub everything down well
while i was washing i noticed that there were a few sections of veneer that were lifting up
on three of the four drawers so i used my box cutter to work some wood glue
up under that loose veneer and then i clamped it down to dry for a few hours
when the wood glue was dry i switched out my sandpaper to a slightly finer 220 grit
and carefully sanded off the original finish that was on those drawer fronts
it was pretty thin so i got lucky and i didn't need to sand too much
didn't damage the veneer to get down to the raw wood and while i was at it
i also used my sander to clean up some of the stains on the insides of the drawers
i'm going to be painting the bodies of these nightstands so my next step is a stain blocking
primer i'm using a spray can of my favorite bin shellac base primer today this is going to keep
any wood tannins from discoloring my new paint and it's also going to create a cohesive surface
between the original finish and the wood filler so that my paint will look the same over both
while my primer dried out in the garage i brought the handles inside to the sink and gave them a
good wash and i also rubbed them down with some steel wool as sort of a scuff sand so that when
i spray paint them that paint will have something to hold on to this champagne gold spray paint is
a really soft shade that is going to look perfect with the rest of the design that i've got in mind
once the primer was dry i sanded it down with a very fine 400 grit sandpaper to make sure it
was perfectly silky smooth and i wiped away the sanding dust that that created with a microfiber
cloth and since it is so hot and humid right now i decided not to spray my paint like i usually do
with the temperatures where they currently are the paint would be half dried by the time it
came out of the gun and hit the furniture so i brought these inside and i'm going to be
brushing them instead i chose the color oyster gray in melange paints artisan mineral line
and my zebra 2 inch angled stubby brush and like any paint you want to make sure that it
is thoroughly mixed before you dip your brush so i gave it a good shake and then got started
this paint has great adhesion and it levels itself pretty well for a mineral paint
i like to brush several thin coats instead of trying to apply more paint and get fuller coverage
in the first layer that really helps a lot with minimizing brush strokes in the final paint job
but this is a hand painted piece so it will have some brush marks and that's okay
these are vintage pieces of furniture artisan one-of-a-kind pieces that are perfectly imperfect
and i'm not a factory i can't produce a factory finish i do the best that i can
to get a beautifully finished product at the end but i think it's important to give ourselves some
grace when it comes to perfection on second hand pieces like this as my friend jamie rae
says done is better than perfect and in use in someone's home is way better than in the landfill
i ended up brushing three total coats of paint but i did sand in between the
second and third coat with some more 400 grit sandpaper just to keep things
as smooth as i could and i did also tape off a straight edge for my paint
to stop on the inside of these just so that it looked a little more finished
next i needed to deal with the drawers i really wanted to keep and feature this beautiful grain
pattern in the veneer so i thought a white wash would be the way to go i mixed a little
of my oyster gray with some water and used a zebra fan brush to apply it over the wood
my first attempt obviously didn't have enough pigment in it to make any difference
so i added a little bit more paint until i got something that i thought would work
usually with a paint wash like this i brush on the water down paint let it soak in for a few
seconds and then wipe away the excess when i did that though all of the paint came off
nothing had really sunk down into those wood pores so i applied a second layer and let it
dry without wiping anything back hoping that the color would work its way down into the wood
but after it was dry it was super blotchy streaky and i could see that it had just dried onto the
surface instead of absorbing down into the wood like it should that is definitely not the look
that i want on these nightstands so i brought the drawers back out to the garage and sanded the
paint off and i decided that i might be better off going with a traditional oil-based stain instead
so i applied a layer of wood conditioner which is supposed to help stains apply more evenly and
then i did a coat of this minwax white pickling stain let's just say that didn't work either
i have never seen this happen with an oil-based stain but it fish-eyed and just beat it up on the
surface not cool so i wiped that stain off and also wiped the drawers down with some mineral
spirits i'm not sure why but that was just my instinct and then i turned to the google i
found a really great blog post about why wood may not be taking stain and some things to try
and get around that i'll leave a link for that in the description box for those that are interested
but long story short the recommended next step was to seal the wood with some shellac seal coat
and use a gel style stain that is designed to sit on top of the wood instead of sinking down into it
i didn't have any shellac but i did have this jar of bear's new water-based stain in a white color
and it's kind of like a gel stain so i thought i would give it a try and just see what happened
i brushed a coat onto one of the drawers keeping my brush strokes in the direction that the grain
was going i should say directions the grain was going in and after an hour it was dry
it was adhered and it was even looking we have a winner it just wasn't as opaque or pigmented
as i wanted for this look so i ended up applying five total coats to the drawers but that's okay
because it only takes an hour to dry in between coats and it was super easy to work with
to seal up and protect my new finish i decided to use bear's water-based polyurethane in matte
this was my first time using it so when i poured it out into a separate container
and saw this kind of pinkish hue i was concerned but i brushed it on over my
light paint anyways and it did definitely brush on and dry crystal clear i did two coats over the
bodies and the drawers of the nightstands and then i put an extra coat on the tops
once my clear coat was dry i laid the tables down on their fronts on a soft blanket and nailed on
some 1 8 inch plywood onto the backs i got doug to cut this for me out on the table saw again but you
can absolutely get the lumber associate at home depot or lowe's to make these kind of cuts for you
i reattached the gorgeous poles and gave the insides of the drawers a quick wipe down
with some scented furniture salve and now they are ready for their next stage in life
so
thank you so much for hanging out with me again today as i flipped this piece
it was a good reminder that things rarely go according to plan when it
comes to flipping furniture please make sure that you are subscribed before you
go leave me a thumbs up and a comment down below and i will catch you guys next time
you