Craft A Spell: Nightstand Makeover

I'm back with another series of furniture refinishing posts. If you've been a long time reader of Craft A Spell, you may have seen my original posts: the nightstand makeover, the desk makeover, and the side table makeover. These all happened right before I moved into my first apartment in April 2013. Not long after, I realized I had made a horrible mistake: I used an oil based polyurethane over latex paint that ambered horribly. I blogged about it here.

Well, it's only taken me three years to fix it. When I moved into my new apartment in April this year, my patience with the yellow furniture was wearing thin, especially since with the new layout of my apartment, I could see the desk (before it was in a little nook that had low light where I could ignore it). Over labor day weekend, I bit the bullet and bought the paint after seeing a post from one of my favorite blogs, Domestic Imperfection, about a water based polyurethane she uses that doesn't yellow.

I did everything at the same time inside my little apartment (it was a mess for a few weeks) but we'll start with the nightstand. Here's what I used:

Kilz original oil based primer
Behr Premium Plus Ultra Interior Satin Enamel in Mystic Turquoise
Varathane No Odor Interior Water Based Polyurethane Satin Crystal Clear (ordered on Amazon)

Here is what the nightstand looked like before.

I sanded the nightstand lightly to rough up the surface and give the primer something to cling to. I put on one coat of primer and then three coats of the Behr paint (sorry no pictures of the different stages). Then I covered the top with three coats of the polyurethane per the instructions. Here's how it came out.

It's actually darker in person but the color photographs weird. I am very happy with it and the oil rubbed bronze handles still look great! I'm feeling pretty hopeful I won't be writing an angry follow up post in six months because the reviews on Amazon for the polyurethane were great!