DIY: Nightstand Revamp

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I moved up to DC with only 2 suitcases and have eventually brought the rest of my stuff (as long as it fit my my Jetta) so I have been lacking furniture for the past year. I spent 4 months sleeping on an air mattress! I know. But now that I have a real bed, I needed a real nightstand. After numerous trips to ikea, target, and a few more "expensive" furniture shops I decided I needed to DIY something to get the look I wanted. I trolled craigslist for a few days, and found this baby for a STEAL.  

What do you think? It's a beautiful solid wood piece, and I wanted something basic (and small) for my bedside table. I love that it has this cubby to display books, baskets, trinkets or whatever else I would want, and still has a drawer (which is currently housing lots of papers). So I thought about this for a while... How should I paint it? My room is painted grey with white bedding and pink curtains. Since I'm obsessed with my grey walls, and I love the monochromatic look I decided to save some $$ and paint it the same color as my walls. I also I wanted something that would blend nicely, but would still work with a new color scheme should I chose to change it in the future. I also decided to tackle a stencil. I realize it was a tad ambitious as my first project, but hey when I was 8 my mom and I re-did an antique dresser for my room. We painted it white with an antique pink for the handles. THEN when I was 14 we spray painted the handles silver... so it's not exactly my first attempt at re-doing antique furniture. I attempted to take pictures all the way through, but I missed a few steps so I apologize and please just use your imagination.

Once I settled on a color scheme it was time to execute it. But... one problem. I live in a small apartment, no porch, no garage, nothing but a sidewalk to paint on. So spray paint was out. Then I decided I didn't want to invest in any industrial sanders, so what to do? Oil-based primer my friend. Yes. Not only didn't I not have to sand the piece, but the primer was so thick the application with a brush created these lines similar to wood grain. Love it.

One coat wasn't quite enough to cover the dark color, and while I'm sure it would have been fine, it really didn't require that much paint, so here's coat #2.

Background information. I have a black and white damask bedspread. I love all things black and white damask. like... LOVE. I was going to attempt a damask flower on top, but couldn't find a good stencil and decided it was too difficult. So, what to do? After searching blogs and blogs for stencils, I finally decided on a fleur de lis. I work for a Louisiana company now, so why not? Let me tell you, thank god I did something simple, because this part was HORRIBLE. as opposed to creating a stencil, I simply cut out the shape, traced it, then taped over that (the worst part), then painted over the whole thing, peel off the tape. Done. Thankfully it turned out well, and I only had to do some minor touch ups.

Time for the big reveal... are you ready?

Yay!!!!

So cute right? I am planning on spray painting the handle white, but haven't gotten a chance to get back to home depot. What do you think???? I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with myself.