I was supposed to travel to Vancouver to visit my sister and some friends in April 2020. I was getting married a few months later, and we had planned a girls’ road trip to Portland to celebrate. When the pandemic first started ramping up, I talked to my dear friend Caroline on a near-daily basis about our trip as the news continued to evolve. First it was, “we won’t be able to go to the States, but at least you can come to Vancouver, and we can do fun things here,” which then became “we won’t really be able to do fun things in Vancouver, but we can hang out at my house,” until we finally realized that it was just too dangerous, cancelled our travel plans, and hunkered down to wait it out.
I finally got the chance to go to Vancouver this past August. We were 500 days into the pandemic at this point, but things seemed to calm down ever-so-slightly during the summer, so I booked my flights and crossed my fingers. After a few travel delays — the inbound plane hit a bird on the way to Toronto and they had to swap out planes before we could leave for Vancouver, and the baggage hold malfunctioned on arrival, so we waited over 90 minutes for my bag to show up on the carousel — I was finally in Caroline’s beautiful new space:
We had big plans for my trip, including finding some time to repaint the nightstands in her guest bedroom. Caroline bought this pair of Pier 1 nightstands on Facebook Marketplace. They were nice, practically-new pieces, but the shiny black finish didn’t really go with the boho vibe going on in the rest of the house and she wanted to give them a new look.
This was an interesting flip for me. I brought my brushes on this trip because I knew I would be painting these nightstands, but I didn’t have access to my usual arsenal of supplies (sandpaper, wood filler, etc.) so the whole process felt very casual. I fought the urge to run to the hardware store to buy a bunch of supplies, choosing instead to focus on doing quality work with what I had on hand.
Because of the time difference, I woke up very early every day, so I worked on the nightstands a few mornings in a row. After carrying these pieces out of the guest room and setting up in the carport, I gave them a good cleaning with dish soap and hot water, then scuff-sanded with a few random bits of 220-grit sandpaper that were on hand.
For these nightstands, we used Mango Paint in the colour Jocelyn, which is a lovely gray-green shade, and Mango Beeswax Furniture Finish in natural. I did two coats of paint on the nightstands prior to sealing. This was my second time using Mango products and I really enjoy working with this paint. It’s a thick chalk paint that levels itself nicely and dries down matte. The wax is very easy to work with as well.
I love the paint colour Caroline chose! These nightstands look SO cute in her guest room. I can’t wait to visit again so I can see how they look in the space.
sarah israel dot com 