DIY : Painting {IKEA} Nightstands

As soon as I hung up our new headboard I immediately wanted new nightstands.  

My nightstand is part of a dresser/nighstand set I bought off a friend, in college, from Ikea, for $75.

It's been around the block, if you will and was desperately in need of a make over.
And Mister's is just as old and equally not the cutest thing we own.

So I started racking my brain on how to change them up and how to do it very cheaply.

I did a bit of research, saw that others suggested priming Ikea pieces first and then got to painting.  Easy peasy.

 I knew I wanted to use the leftover paint from the headboard but I didn't want the nightstands to match exactly, I wanted them to a little on the darker side.

To achieve this, the first thing I did was have Lowes tint my primer as dark as they could.
(did you know you can primer tinted any color??)

As dark as they could do turned out to be a soft gray and that was fine with me!
The primer I picked up said it didn't require sanding so I got going with the primer.
I used a foam paint roller for the primer and the paint.  I had used a foam brush on our front door and I really liked how it performed.

I ended up doing two coats of the primer just for good measure.
Because it was approximately 88 degrees outside, the primer dried in no time and I was able to start painting fairly quickly.

Like I said, I wanted to use the leftover paint from our headboard but then I also realized we had the paint from our stripes left over too.  My mind started spinning.
I poured out both colors and started mixing.

Mister came outside and said, 'that doesn't look very scientific...'
To which I responded, 'it's not but I like it!'
The downside of this, I can't tell you the name of the color I used.
The upside is, I really like how my experimental color mixing turned out.

I did two coats on both nightstands and the amount of paint I mixed up worked out just right.
It was nothing short of a miracle.

And, of course, my trusty sidekicks weren't too far away.

*excuse the nose art on our door*

Come back tomorrow to see how they turned out and what they look like in our room!