The Ugliest Piece of Furniture I Bought Became One of My Favorite Nightstands

If you've read about the $40 antique wash stand I turned into my nightstand, you might think that was the only wash stand I brought home.

It wasn't...

There were actually two.

And this one?

This one was the ugly one.

But before I get to that, I have to tell you how I ended up with it in the first place.

It Started With Four Chairs

We had moved back to Florida about three months earlier when I spotted them on Facebook Marketplace.

Antique Tell City chairs.

Four of them.

$40.

I already had two of the same chairs that my mom had found for me at a flea market, and I knew eventually I wanted six so we could have a complete dining set.

So when I saw four more for $40, I didn't hesitate.

I messaged the woman and went to pick them up.

I was so excited that I started telling her about the two chairs I already had and how these were the exact same chairs.

She asked me if I liked antiques.

I may have scared her a little with how quickly and loudly I answered:

YES!

Apparently, that was the right answer.

Because instead of just sending me home with my chairs, she invited me inside.

Her mother had recently passed away, and the family was selling the furniture.

She told me to look around.

So I started taking pictures.

And I quickly realized I might have stumbled into something much bigger than four chairs.

There was a beautiful wooden pie hutch with ornate carvings on the doors.

A 1910 hand-sewn tiger oak pedestal table.

An Ethan Allen buffet cabinet that was literally being propped up with a stone block.

A really cool desk with a manual wheel that raised and lowered the height.

A tall boy dresser.

And then...

There it was.

The wash stand.

The yellow one.

The really yellow one.

I loved almost everything I was seeing.

But I was also quietly terrified to find out what she wanted for all of it.

I told her I was interested, and she said she'd have her brother put together a price.

A little while later, she sent me the price sheet.

I looked at it.

Then I looked again.

$150 for everything.

I immediately said yes.

We rented a truck and hauled the entire collection to a storage unit.

At that point, we didn't even have a house.

We had just moved back to Florida and were staying with my in-laws.

But I had furniture.

And I had plans.

I Could Already See the House

At the time, I was fascinated by furniture flipping.

I had been seeing pictures of people taking old tiger oak tables and dressers and bringing them back to life, and I really wanted to learn how to do it myself.

Except I didn't really want to flip these pieces.

I wanted to keep them.

I could already see our future house in my head.

I pictured a beautiful kitchen nook with that gorgeous tiger oak pedestal table surrounded by antique chairs.

I pictured my grandmother's 100-year-old chairs.

I pictured the Tell City ladder-back chairs stained or painted and bringing warmth and character into our dining space.

I had a whole house planned around furniture I didn't even have a house for yet.

Then, about a year later, we finally got our house.

And it wasn't the house I had imagined.

Some of those pieces had to go.

It wasn't easy letting go of furniture I had spent so much time dreaming about.

But there was one piece I didn't have any dreams for.

The ugly yellow wash stand.

Honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do with it.

I thought it was so ugly that I'd probably have to practically give it away.

Or maybe I'd make it into a furniture flip and resell it.

I certainly never expected it to become one of my favorite pieces.

The Ugly Yellow Thing

For years, my husband had been using a black plastic Sterilite three-drawer unit as his nightstand.

It held his socks, underwear and some ties.

Was it attractive?

No.

But if we're being completely honest, it wasn't as ugly as this wash stand.

This thing was putrid.

It was yellow trying to be cool but somehow ending up as dirty mustard.

And then there were the appliques.

I still can't tell you what they were supposed to be.

Who designed this?

How soon did they get fired?

But then I looked across our bedroom.

On my side of the bed was the $40 wash stand I had already transformed into my nightstand.

And something clicked.

That ugly yellow wash stand was going to be its partner.

I didn't necessarily want it to match exactly.

I just wanted the two pieces to feel like they belonged together.

I measured the space beside my husband's side of the bed.

And secretly, I was hoping it would be too big.

It wasn't.

It fit perfectly.

Well...

I guess I was doing this.

First, Those Appliques Had to Go

If this thing was going into my house, that appliqué was coming off.

There was no negotiation.

I started gently picking at it.

Pieces began breaking away, but most of it was stubborn.

So I got out the putty knife.

Then the hammer.

I started digging and tapping and working my way underneath it until, eventually, the entire thing was gone.

And then I stood back.

Huh.

That actually looks a lot better.

Wait.

What was that?

Without the appliqué covering everything, I could finally see a beautiful woven pattern carved into the vertical fronts.

I hadn't even noticed it before.

Maybe this could actually work.

And if I hated it?

I could always sell it.

At least that's what I told myself.

The Yellow Dust Incident

Out came the trusty sander.

I put on 80-grit sandpaper and went to town.

And apparently, I underestimated exactly how much yellow dust a little furniture project could produce.

I had a dust collector attached to the sander, so naturally I assumed it was collecting the dust.

It was collecting some of the dust.

Just not nearly as much as I thought.

When I finally looked up from my project, the entire garage was covered in a fine layer of yellow dust.

Including my white car.

Because apparently, removing an ugly yellow finish wasn't enough.

I also needed to give my car a yellow makeover.

I went through the sanding process anyway.

80 grit to get through that awful finish.

Then 180.

Then 220.

And as the old yellow disappeared, something surprising happened.

I started liking the piece.

The wood underneath was beautiful.

Those carved details I'd barely been able to see before were finally becoming visible.

Maybe this wasn't going to be a furniture flip after all.

Ooooh La La

Once I had the piece sanded smooth, I grabbed my trusty Minwax Dark Walnut.

I already knew I wanted it to coordinate with my nightstand.

I took a rag and started wiping the stain onto the wood.

And almost immediately:

Ooooh la la.

I liked this.

A lot.

The dark walnut completely changed the personality of the wash stand.

It wasn't yellow anymore.

It wasn't dated.

It wasn't trying to be something it wasn't.

Now the wood itself was the star.

I let the stain dry and then gave it my usual two coats of Minwax Satin Polyurethane to protect the finish.

And then I saw the knobs.

Oh no.

Those white ceramic knobs were definitely not going back on this piece.

The Hardware Changed Everything

I started looking for something that would work better.

I wanted something that tied in with the existing handles but also gave the wash stand a little more of an old, timeless feel.

And, admittedly, I wanted it to feel a little more manly.

This was going on my husband's side of the bed, after all.

I found antique bronze knobs.

Perfect.

Once they were installed, the whole thing finally made sense.

The dark walnut.

The bronze hardware.

The carved wood.

The subtle woven pattern.

It had gone from dirty mustard yellow with questionable appliques to something that looked like it had always belonged in our bedroom.

And what I love most is that from across the room, you really can't tell much difference between the two nightstands.

They feel like a pair.

But when you get closer, you discover that they're different.

And that's exactly what I wanted.

Two Wash Stands, Two Completely Different Stories

My nightstand started as a $40 antique wash stand that I immediately saw potential in.

This one?

I couldn't see the potential at all.

I saw yellow.

I saw ugly appliques.

I saw a piece of furniture I might eventually have to sell.

But somewhere underneath all of that was beautiful wood, carved detail and a piece that just needed someone willing to look past what it had become.

Now my husband has his wash stand.

I have mine.

They're roughly the same size, they coordinate beautifully, but they're uniquely different.

And honestly, I couldn't have asked for a better nightstand for his side of the room.

It's masculine without being heavy.

Old without looking dated.

And detailed without demanding attention.

Most importantly, I never would have designed it this way from the beginning.

I didn't buy it because I loved it.

I bought it because it was part of a $150 collection of antique furniture that I couldn't walk away from.

It sat there being ugly until I finally figured out what it could be.

And that's probably one of the things I love most about furniture makeovers.

Sometimes the piece you fall in love with immediately is the easiest one to transform.

But sometimes...

It's the ugly one.

The one you almost sell.

The one you can't imagine anyone wanting.

The one that makes you wonder what on earth somebody was thinking when they painted it dirty mustard yellow and glued questionable appliques all over it.

Sometimes that's the piece hiding the biggest transformation.

And now, every night when I look across our bedroom at our two very different wash stands, I can't help but smile.

The one I thought was too ugly to keep ended up being exactly what our bedroom needed.

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