Apartment To Apartment: Plain To Stained

After living with unfinished night stands for nearly FIVE months... I can proudly cross these babies off the list.

Remember when I was getting some 'rast' ideas back in January and settled on this beauty:

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I liked the sleek look of bronze, t-bar handles though. I did numerous searches in home improvement stores here for them and even tried to find something I liked just as much. Ultimately it was Amazon to the rescue and I scored these for $1.49 each!

I went to Lowe's on Sunday to get my supplies and felt terrified at the thought of staining something. I wanted a gel stain because I heard that was easy to use but the colors they had were all wrong.

I ended up choosing the color 'kona' from Rustoleum.

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I totally didn't need such a huge can of stain, polyurethane, and paint but I wasn't sure. I was so intimidated that I just didn't want to not have enough!

I think the total for the materials came to about $45 (it would have been less had I bought smaller cans but maybe I can use these on other projects!)

I sanded the pieces even though they felt smooth already. There were a few rough spots here and there.

After gritting my teeth and putting the first swipe of stain on, I had a mini-heart attack because it was SO DARK. It was almost black which was not what I wanted at all. Luckily Mom was right there because she told me to take my cloth and wipe it off some. After that, the color was perfect! I only ended up doing one coat but I think they looked awesome.

I did three smooth, even coats on the drawers with the Olympic paint I bought.

Over the next two days after work I coated my work in polyurethane liberally but not too thick. I wanted the finish to be smooth and really made sure I didn't have any spots running.

Today I came home and couldn't wait to put them in our room!