Project: Master Bedroom Furniture

After selling our bedroom set to make money for our new king mattress, Dellas and I needed to figure out what to do for furniture! I had recently bought an antique mirror from a neighbor that gave me inspiration to do something totally different! This window came from some sort of old out-building that was torn down recently in a small town about 20mins south of here.

My inspiration

So Del found a cool plan online for some rustic side tables and went to town on those first. We originally planned on staining them with store-bought stain, but I came across a cool oxidizing solution; coffee grounds, black tea, very fine steel wool, all thrown in a jar of white vinegar (let sit for at least 24hrs). Instead of staining, it oxidizes the wood and gives it a naturally "aged" and rustic look.

One of the side tables, Before

Side table, After!

 It was all great and fun to have new side tables, but I still had nowhere to store most of my clothes! Originally, Dellas thought he'd build a dresser to match the tables, but instead we happened across a nice, well-built, pine dresser on Craigslist for $100 and decided to just refinish it to match the tables.

Perfectly good dresser

 So we got going on it and first tore off the tapered trim/molding and big round feet to give it cleaner, more square lines. Then after 1 FULL day of sanding, by yours truly, we had a gorgeous bare pine dresser that Dellas then slapped on some square trim for me.

Almost done!

 After a LOT of applying the solution, sanding, and reapplying solution, I finally am satisfied with the final product! We ordered some cute pulls from Home Depot and I threw them on last night to be 100% DONE! (note about solution: don't "stain" the whole dresser, then wait 10 days to do "touch ups" because then said "touch ups" turn a rusty, pink color because the solution has oxidized that much longer! This caused me to have to sand all the drawers back off, make a new batch of solution and reapply!)

Final product! (although lighting isn't fabulous)

I'm really happy with how it ultimately turned out. The dresser's wood pulled in some deeper tones than the side tables did, I'm guessing because of the differing ages of the wood, but it all looks great together!
And believe it or not, my oxidizing solution made the wood look so much like the naturally aged wood of the old antique window but without the wait!
So for, idk, $150 or so altogether (dresser, side table wood, supplies, etc) we have a new bedroom set! That's 75-80% savings compared to what we paid for our last bedroom set!