A super cute wash stand makeover!

It’s a perfect day when I find something I love at the thrift store and it fits into our car!

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve left the thrift store upset that something I loved just wouldn’t fit in our car to take home!

Every time I go into the thrift store, I make it my personal challenge to find some huge piece of furniture that I can squeeze into the car.  Sometimes the furniture even finds me!  Remind me to tell you the story of the cabinet in the basement!

But, first, this wash stand!

I saw this wash stand at the thrift store a couple weeks ago.  At the time, I only saw the back of it.  Another customer was in front of it, debating on whether on not they were going to buy it.

I’ll get to this in another post, but there’s a process for picking out furniture.  It involves lot of yes or no questions.  Maybe even a flow chart.  It’s complicated!

To the customer before me, one of those flow chart things was a big NO & she walked away.
It was my turn now.

Judging from the back of the piece, I knew it was going to be a good one.  I didn’t take any pictures of the back for my blog, but it’s super rustic & cool.
 Overall, it was a solid piece, but it had a lot of imperfections.  The top had a huge crack & the door was a little weird.  It was also missing a lot of the hardware.  But it was just too cute to pass up so I got it!  Plus, it would fit in the car!


After cleaning it up & gluing the cracks, it was time for refinishing!  I wanted a fun color, so I went with my current favorite yellow, Cork Board by Dutch Boy.  I took out the drawers & the door & completed them first.  I waited until the paint was almost dry & then I took a sanding sponge & distressed!  I’m into heavily distressing pieces lately, so I was going for that vibe.  Then I did the same thing to the base of the wash stand.

I didn’t apply a top coat because I was using an outdoor paint so it should hold together without one.
Refinishing the top was a complete disaster (that I’ll get into tomorrow!), so we ended up keeping it simple.  We put some gel stain over the top to get into the cracks of the wood & even it out some.  Then, once everything was dry, I put some furniture wax on top to seal it all in.

I used hardware I already had on hand.  My husband spray painted the knobs black to match everything.

I think this is my current favorite furniture piece we’ve ever done!  It’s just so cute!