We purchased a pair of 'vintage' nightstands online from a dealer in Toronto. The photos looked decent and their size was right. The dealer assured us they were good and as we hadn't been able to find anything we liked in New York, we decided to go with them.
Caveat Emptor. Once They arrived and were unpacked we found ourselves wanting to believe that they looked fine. However, in reality we both knew that their proportions were off and the overall look and feel was horsey.
while Living with them over the next few months we discovered that they were in fact not old, good nor original. At some point in their past they had been painted and the hardware replaced.
Our first thought was that I would design new nightstands and have them fabricated. But as I worked on the design I kept feeling that there might be something worth rehabilitating. They did have good storage and for very little expense they could look better if some things were changed.
As I love a little summer project I got to work discarding the old hardware, installing new shorter legs to improve the proportions, filling the old holes, drilling new ones, scraping, sanding, painting and installing new pulls.
All-in-all a minimum of effort for a great end result.
