Two months ago my bedroom underwent a makeover, with the headboard painted with swans. I've shared this project here before and I've yet to talk about a very important detail that made all the difference in the new bedroom decor: the bedside table. I was very excited to show this project here, so I ended up leaving it for a quieter moment. And that time has come!
As you can see below, this bedside table was blue before it became what it is now - pink with flowers. In fact, I've had this table with me since I was 8 years old and I won it at a neighborhood fair as a raffle prize.
Since then, this little table has always been in my room. Sometimes next to my bed, sometimes in another place. It is made of solid wood and had a beautiful natural color, as far as I can remember, but there is no photographic record to prove it.
However, when I left my parents' house, my mother asked an uncle to paint it blue so that I could take it with me, but with a new look. The only thing that remained were the original handles on the drawers.
While the artist Julliana Rosa was painting my headboard, I thought it would be the perfect time to paint this little bedside table. After all, the blue color was already quite weathered and wouldn't match the colors we chose for the headboard.
The first step was to remove the handles, cover the holes with wood filler and sand the piece to give it its first coat of paint. I used an enamel paint that I already had at home and which had been used to paint many small projects around here. A very small can that yielded a lot!
So, as there was still a bit of this pink paint left over, it was chosen to cover the bedside table. As well as the color matching the new atmosphere in the bedroom, I really like to reuse materials to the end and I'm absurdly against waste of any kind.
It took a few coats before the blue tone was completely hidden. I didn't have a specific roller for wood so I ended up painting with a used brush, which I'm not sure was a good idea. I had to go over it many times until all the bristle marks were gone and the coverage was even. So I learned that investing in the right tools is always the best thing to do.
As you can see in the following images, after painting the piece I drew flowers on the drawers with a pencil, but only after creating this oval background. As I didn't paint a template, I measured the distances with a ruler and made the edges using a porcelain bowl.
Then it was time to start the most fun part of this transformation. I drew flowers in pencil just to guide my painting and then used the paints we had received for the headboard project to paint and fill in the flowers.
It was very therapeutic to keep mixing the colors and creating different layers for the petals. I could have spent many hours on this process and, in fact, I think I did.
After painting the two drawers, I made a few dots on the edge of the oval frame using the back of the brush. I look at them and I'm a bit annoyed that they're not completely symmetrical, but I guess that's also natural when you're working 100% by hand. And I can even see the beauty in that... in not being a machine when it comes to creating and executing things.
I made small markings in the center to help me know the correct distance to put the handles back on. I was unsure whether to keep the old handles or replace them with these new heart handles. I bought them simply because I thought they were beautiful and knew that one day I could use them in any project. They had been in storage for a few months, waiting for this big day.
Well, the old handles were nice, but I confess that after 30 years of looking at them every day I was getting a bit bored and needed something new.
Now they're in storage, waiting for a new piece of furniture that can receive them. I ended up deciding on the heart handles and I think the table is simply one of my most beautiful and delicate creations.
I think it's worth mentioning that when I started painting, I only knew that the bedside table would be pink and nothing else. I also knew that it would have drawings, but I hadn't really thought about what I would do. Everything was created according to what I wanted at the time. I love it when I allow myself to create something like that, without much planning. And with furniture painting, it always seems to be like that.
Here are some photos of the finished table. I hope you like them.
see ya! 💐
