MAP Nightstands! Seriously My Favorite Project to Date!

I cannot say it enough. I LOVE CRAIGSLIST! There is evidence of my love affair with Craigslist (here, here, and here). Up next on the "decorate the house on the cheap" is our bedroom. We have all the same furniture in our room that we got when we were married. And by "got" I mean given. Our bed we got from neighbors the day we moved into our house. I think they had pity on us. We literally had no furniture. Our nightstands were in Troy's bedroom when he was growing up. My dresser is from my childhood bedroom. Troy's dresser was given to us by one of my friends parents. NOTHING matches. Until now :) I saw the idea for using modge podge in the Young House Love book. But I didn't want to use wallpaper. I got the map idea from here and here. Gotta love execution of projects on Pinterest.

Have a look at our "new nightstands" in all their glory!

Our master bedroom was definitely designed for a king sized bed. Now I know that there are pros and cons to king sized beds. Everyone we know has one LOVES it. "Once you get a king bed you'll never go back." We know, we know. HOWEVER, I don't want to sleep in a different bed than Troy. Which is what I feel like a king sized bed would feel like. AND with Troy being in the military, you never know what your housing situation will be. You could have switchback stairs (folding your king mattress like a taco), or a tiny bedroom in Japan (where you can't use nightstands), or a tiny townhouse in Northern Virginia (where all the colonial style bedrooms are TEENY). So a queen is just a smarter move for us right now. Ask me again in a few years when Troy and I have been married for ten years. I kid, honey. Not really.

So this was our bedroom situation. The nightstands were barely large enough for a lamp and a book with the alarm clock on top. TEENY. And because the room was designed for a big bed, the furniture looks tiny on that big wall. Not having art is not helping proportions either. But I hit Craigslist hard for nightstands.

They're just too small...

Sorry I didn't get a full "before pic." The one on the left hasn't had anything done to it, but the one on the right I had already started on with the sander. I love the lines and the hardware. :) They're awesome.

I love love love the parkay top. You can see that there were some water stains and overall wearing down. After some work, it re-stained awesome!

Here is one fully sanded. Mistake #1 : I got a little too aggressive with the sander around the edge. It didn't take the stain that well...BUT that's okay. It gives it a little more texture.

I stained them with Minawax Dark Walnut and wiped them down really well. I didn't want the color as dark as the table top from the kitchen. After they dried, I put on a coat of polyacrylic clear gloss. I bought 2 giant fold out maps off Amazon. Troy was born in Texas and I was born in South Carolina, so that's what I went with. I used Modge-Podge to apply the maps to the front of the drawers. Troy was like "Really? That's weird." You wait and see who gets the last laugh (it's me, by the way).

I love how you can see where the maps would have connected. The highways are a little offset, but overall, I'm super happy with them.

Here is the after shot. See how the wall doesn't look so huge? No more Alice in Wonderland furniture!! YAY!

And here it is at night with some mood lighting? Oooh la la! And now we both have 3 drawers instead of one and tons of space to avoid stacking everything up. It was like an avalanche waiting to happen on Avery's head. And direct quote from Troy, "Ok now that I see them up here, they're pretty awesome." Win.

If I was going to do this project over again, I would have tea-stained the maps. The white backdrop of the map is a little stark white with the cream and gold tones in the bedding. But overall, 9/10. And still winning for my favorite project in the house. So far...

I've got a SWEEEEEEET project coming up. I'll give you a hint. It starts with play and ends with kitchen. For Avery. An EPIC trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore was in order. I CANNOT WAIT!