Repurposed Night Stand

I always have these great plans in my head to redo our old furniture.  This night stand was originally going to be painted black, I think, and then given a mosaic top.  Yeah, that never happened.  I do still have the mosaic tiles, though. Then we had to move...and move again...and it just got buried in storage for a while. It's actually a nice solid piece that just needed a little love.

 Mr. No got his first play kitchen for his first birthday.  By age 3, we replaced it with a wooden one in red (his favorite color) and white and he also received a matching plastic ice cream stand/grocery store.  Oddly enough, even this wasn't enough room for all of his food and cooking supplies.  So, when the night stand resurfaced, idea #2 popped into my head.  Turn it into a matching cabinet for his supplies. It has a a nice little sided area to hold things and could even be turned into a play sink with just a bit of wood and some inexpensive faucet parts.

Since we're super lazy, and I didn't want to have to sand it, we bought this spray paint that doesn't require sanding.  It did take 2 coats but it covered the entire stand nicely.

This looks like H did all the work.  Completely not true!  We shared it.  Actually, I did a bit more only because I was impatient.  Here's our very professional painting set-up. See how thick the paint goes on!

Since I wanted it to compliment our play kitchen, I painted the doors and top red and the outside, inside and drawer white.  My original plan was to change the hardware but it was in good condition and sturdy so I didn't bother.  I still may...

Here it is in use.  A shelf in the bottom completes it and it is a sturdy usable cabinet.  Much more sturdy than his kitchen was.

He has outgrown the play kitchen and grocery store but the stand is still used daily.  It went from kitchen cabinet to science station.  His hamster food fits nicely on the side.  His bug box with 4 cocoons sits on the other side and the cabinet itself hides all the random boxes of science supplies, invention parts and tools like magnets, tubes, whistles, magnifying glasses, etc.

Now I just have to repaint that green bookcase and finish the bookshelf that I'm turning into a shoe storage bench and his furniture will be done! We'll see how long that takes...