$25 Changing Table

Welcome to Long + Found!  


Basically, I'll be blogging about some cheap diy projects around our house, (some new and some old) and updates on our life.  We just welcomed the birth of our baby boy Ward, born March 7th and have been enjoying life as new parents.  Though his nursery is not finalized, I thought I'd share a small project that I'm taking full advantage of these days...


When it came to decorating the nursery, we knew we needed a changing table.  I refuse to  buy a new one for hundreds of dollars when I knew we could make something that had more character and for a fraction of the price!  So I did what I normally do when looking for a furniture piece....search Craigslist.  And lo and behold I found this beauty for $25:

The original faux finish crackle paint job is rather scary, but I loved that it was solid wood, had great lines and had perfect dimensions for a changing table.  All we needed to do was build the top box for the changing pad.   That's where my husband, Trey comes in.  I found this great template online and he took it from there.  We didn't follow the template exactly, but it gave us an idea of where to begin.  Once the top was assembled it looked like this:

Trey then had to sand down the surface of the dresser to remove the crackled faux finish and fill in some chips on the drawer fronts. 

Then he had to apply many coats of paint in order to achieve a smooth surface.  He forgot to prime the dresser, which would have eliminated a coat or two, but oh well.  In the end here's the final result!

I love it- it's the perfect height and we can fit all of baby Ward's diapers, wipes, creams, etc. in the compartment on the side.  We are definitely getting our use out of it these days :)

Note: the paint color we used is Olympic "antique silver" and the knobs are from Lowe's.