That's not what it's for....

Why hello there!

Today I'm going to show you a little something I did em....let me see.....maybe three months ago!! Yea, I told you I fell behind with my posting on here.

When we moved into our flat originally we slept on a mattress on the floor. The first day here we managed to get a lot of our furniture from the local charity shop, including a bedside mini chest of drawers. So we had a bedside table going on without the bed. The eventually we got the bed. I was the lucky one who got to sleep on the side of the bed that didn't have the chest of drawers so I had to put my light on top of the head board of the bed!

For a long time I would pop into the furniture charity shop in Lewisham and have a quick whizz around to see if they had anything suitable for my side of the bed. Unfortunately because the heater is pretty close to the bed I needed something that was fairly skinny.

After months...actually over a year of looking, I decided to do it myself. Myself and Adam went of to Ikea looking to see what could work. Just as I was about to give up hope I spotted this box and thought it would work perfectly (while looking for a link to it, it looks like it's not there anymore). I bought the cheapest stool Ikea had to offer and hey presto, a bedside table!

Despite the fact that none of the furniture in our bedroom matches I didn't want to keep the box in its original pale wooden colour so decided to stain it. I stained it with a mahogany wood stain. Unfortunately since I was doing it on a not so pleasant day I had to try do it inside.....bad move. DO NOT try to stain wood indoors. I managed to give all parts 2 coats of stain and then we promptly left the flat for the evening to avoid the fumes!!

It'll need a quick going over in the summertime as I'd like it a little bit darker but it does it's job nicely at the moment. I like having more storage in the bedroom too and for once i haven't filled it up completely!

Another little bit I like about it is that it doubles as two items of furniture (essential in a tiny London flat). As I didn't screw the box onto the legs I can still pop the top onto them and turn it back into a stool...yay for extra seating!!

Do you loath having mismatching going on or do you just embrace the oddness of it all? What have you re purposed?

Chloe x
(p.s. did you notice my lovely new cushion on the bed??)