Baby change table refresh

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My husband and I were shopping in our local Habitat for Humanity Restore and for whatever reason, my parents were there too.

In the middle of our shopping adventure, my mom wrangles me and directs me to a beautiful oak coloured wooden change table. Spoiler alert: we don’t have any babies. She insisted it was a good price and said she would split the price with me. Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever paid her my $50 share.

A few things ran through my mind:

  • We don’t have children, why do we need this?
  • This would make a GREAT project.
  • $100 isn’t that bad a price when I split it with my mom.

To be honest, a lot of projects take me a long time to get started, or my day job gets in the way and it takes me forever to finish them. In this case, I believe this took me over a year to finish, mostly because we live in Canada and winter is a real struggle and also because my motivation was waning.

Here are the supplies that I used for this project:

  • Kilz Premium primer paint
  • Behr semi-gloss white paint (untinted)
  • Cricut maker* optional
  • Removable vinyl* optional
  • Screwdriver
  • Knobs

So I decided that I wanted this to be white, but you can paint it any colour – just make sure to use Kilz Primer first. I opted for the Premium to make sure there was good adhesion between the glossy wood and the new paint. One year later, with a vacuum knocking into it and use in my make-shift office, there is not a single chip of paint! I’ve also used this on my baseboards and trim and have had great results!

So to start this project, I took off the door and took out all the drawers. I numbered each drawer so I knew it was going back in the correct place. I left the top on. I probably could have taken it off, but I didn’t see there being much benefit, so I left it on and just painted really well into the cracks.

I’m terrible at taking the in-between photos for each step, but make sure that you coat the project in primer for at least two coats. The primer will go on in thin coats and this is better. Also be sure to let it dry completely before moving onto new paint layers.

Once dry, you can paint in the colour of your choice!

Make sure to let the final coats dry completely before reassembling at all. The biggest issue I ran into specific to this piece: transparent drawer fronts.

As you can see, I had a little helper. This is Marvin.

The drawers of this had a plastic insert on the front that was not possible to remove, so I painted it white, thinking I could use my Cricut to cut out a frosted vinyl to give it a frosted look. When I put this on, that particular vinyl is so transparent, you could see all my paint streaks! So my husband suggested I use just grey vinyl, which is what I ended up doing.

It was very difficult to get it to cut this particular shape, but after a few hours of dedication, I was able to get it to work correctly.

You can’t see this in any of the photos, but I used contact paper on the bottoms of the drawers so I didn’t have to worry about painting them, etc. I got two different kinds from Amazon:
– Grey and yellow circles
– Grey chevron

I also didn’t love the wooden handles and thought of painting them so I picked up some crystal knobs from our local Home Depot.

I then reattached the door, hardware, and drawer slides to all the pieces. Final step is putting it all back together.

Et voila!

There is a door that goes on the right, I just hadn't reattached it yet.

Instructions

  1. Clean off surfaces with a damp cloth.
  2. Take out any drawers and remove any doors.
  3. Take off all hardware and place in a safe place.*
  4. Paint at least 2 coats of primer on all surfaces, allowing it to dry for recommended time.
  5. Paint with the colour of your choice.
  6. Reassemble the item using the old (or new) hardware.
  7. Enjoy your updated piece for years to come.

* I will usually tape the screws to the hardware and if necessary, you can label this.