Desk Makeover: "New" Nightstands

Alternate title: how to offend antique enthusiasts.

This project was a looooong time coming. I bought this desk over a year ago, at my hometown thrift shop:

My initial impression: old, heavy. battered, worn, and UGLY. I hear the antique lovers screaming in protest already. If that already got your panties in a twist, hold on tight. It's going to be a bumpy ride....

So why did I buy this hunk of junk if I hated it so much? Because I had been searching and searching for matching nightstands to replace my current college-budget IKEA-wannabe set. This desk might have been ugly, but it was oozing with character - the quarter-round trim, the delicately curved drawers... I saw the desk and wished I could could just chop it in half! Oh wait. I actually *could* do that. More accurately, the man-thing could do that:

I hear more agonized screaming from the antique-lovers. The worst is over now. We patched up a water-warped drawer bottom and sanded the two pieces. It looked like the desk was used in someone's garage for nails and other repairs. All surfaces were pretty badly scratched and dented. I used wood glue and wood filler to repair what I could. My skills are pretty rudimentary, but it seemed to work.

 Unfortunately, there was not enough of the fancy quarter-round trim salvaged from the desk to complete an entire circuit of the two "halves" that would become my new nightstands. I decided to buy some from my local hardware store. That stopped this project in its tracks for 3 months. No one in town carried anything like the original trim. Nothing in my mother's woodmill magazine was worth ordering. I finally found a simple rope-twist quarter-round. It was a pale imitator, but it would do. I learned how to use a miter box and cut everything out.... and it was HIDEOUS. the width of the new trim was significantly less than that of the original, and the "twists" in the rope pattern were so extreme that the mitered corners were irregular and wouldn't match up.

I almost gave up! Let this be a lesson - never throw anything away when repurposing furniture. I still had salvaged pieces of the original trim. While I didn't have enough to trim the entire top of the two pieces, I had enough to miter the ends and place a decorative trim on the fronts:

This will sound obvious, but the original trim looked so authentic and genuine to the overall feel of the piece. I don't know why I didn't think of it in the first place!

The man-thing and I had many discussions on how to finish the nightstands. I argued that I had snagged some deep teal paint from a previous project for my mother, and it would match our bedspread. He is adamantly opposed to painting wood. Having been stained for so long, the wood didn't sand to an even color; I had my doubts about re-staining. Ultimately, I took the plunge (while my husband was away, heh), and used the paint. It was so much lighter when wet, I was filled with immediate regret:

But as it dried, it began to match my vision. Finishing touches were new hardware, drawer liner, and felt pieces for the feet. Let me just say that Ace Hardware makes the best self-adhesive felt pads. The style I use is linked in the tally at the bottom. These are great for avoiding scuffs on hardwood, making heavy furniture easier to move, and, in this case, preventing any paint that still needed to settle (I'm impatient) from hitting the floor.

Due to the height of the "new" nightstands, I purchased bed risers to make the top surface more accessible. I also bought new lamps, since man-thing admitted (after two years, guh) that he hated the color I painted the last pair. The final staging:

I love it! My husband was really impressed that I finally finished the project on my own after a year. I think he was worried the desk was going to be in the garage forever.

The break-down:

Desk: $40
Wood glue, wood filler: $8
Felt pads: $4
Paint: reused, $0
Sand paper: left over from previous projects, $0
Quarter-round: $19
Hardware: $2.69x8 + tax = $23ish
TOTAL: $94, lots of elbow grease, and patience.

Clearly not one of my more thrifty projects, but I couldn't be happier with the result!

So what do you think? Was I wrong to hack apart an antique and repurpose it? Or did the end justify the means?