Nightstand into Kids Work Bench

Hello again!

Okay so I told you that I was making a tutorial on a project I was doing that I found on Pinterest. The specific idea I found came from The Frugal Granny. It's a wonderful idea for a kids work bench made from an old nightstand. While I was looking at this on Pinterest I realized that I had a nightstand in Masons room being used for storage that was almost identical to the nightstand The Frugal Granny used. I instantly decided I had to do this! I mean I have the nightstand, it's for toys, AND it was in a little rough shape. So why NOT do it? Here is how I went about creating Masons tool bench.

What you'll need:

- An old nightstand

- Sand paper

- Paint (I bought what I call 'booboo' paint from Wal-Mart in the most fun color I could find)

- Painters Tape

- Chalk Board Paint

- A few paint brushes

- Yard Stick

- Peg board

- Peg Hooks

- Nails and a Hammer

How I did it:

This is the nightstand I started with. Nothing special.

I first sanded down the surfaces that would be painted just to give it a rough enough edge for the paint to stick. I was lucky enough to have a nightstand that had already been repainted once so I didn't need to sand it too much to get a good painting surface.

After I finished sanding it I gave it two coats of my fun colored 'booboo' paint (the kind of paint that was mixed incorrectly so they put it on clearance to sell the color).

Here is the painted nightstand.

I did the yellow painting on one day and everything else the next day to ensure the paint was dry. So on the 2nd day I first started by using my painters tape to mark off a section to paint the top of my work bench.

I then filled the middle with Chalk Board Paint so that my son can 'mark' his measurements.

I did three coats of this paint to be sure that I had a good surface. Once the paint was pretty much dried I removed my painters tape to see my chalk board surface.

I then took a yard stick that I found at Lowe's for .62 cents (score!) and cut it. I cut the yard stick to the length of the drawer so that it fits between the ends of the nightstand.

To attach the yard stick it would probably be best to use wood glue or something of the sort but I didn't have any so I used Super Glue and it worked perfectly for me .

Now comes the part that I am no good at. Nailing the peg board onto the nightstand. At Lowe's you can buy the smaller sheet of peg board and it just so happened that it was the perfect height from floor to how tall I wanted it. That way it is able to be nailed onto more of the nightstand so that it has more stability. The piece was a little too wide but not worth me messing with cutting it (that would of been scary! lol). So I just centered it and went to nailing.

 Now the one flaw I had when I did this project was a crooked nail. I have no perfected the art of hammering nails yet but luckily it doesn't affect the whole work bench so it's okay!

The most difficulty I had with this project was finding the peg board hooks at Lowe's! It wasn't in hardware or in the closet organization aisle (which is where I was directed to find them). Nope, they were in an electrical aisle in a random section of bike hooks and tool organizers. I found them after circling the aisles multiple times. 

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So much searching for these! Anyways, after I had the peg board nailed onto the nightstand I got to organize Masons tools.

I think that this is the cutest thing ever if I do say so myself! :)  I couldn't help but smile at the finished product. It honestly was not difficult to do and I enjoyed doing it! Hopefully I can find some other awesome idea's that I am successful at and share them with you again! 

Here's Mason using his tools to fix his little car. :) As soon as I put it in his room he was using it! Hopefully he keeps up playing with it!!

That was my adventure for the last two days. I hope you enjoyed it and got a few idea's yourself. I will now go back to hunting Pinterest for my next projects.