::Making simple things beautiful::

Monday, August 15, 2011

One shabbied up desk...yes please!

Happy Monday!  By now I have made my way across the state line and seen a beautiful baby girl make her way into the world.

Here is the desk that I shabbied up for my friend Emily.  She is an amazing photographer and is probably cringing at the sight of my pictures right about now.  To see a tidbit of her awesome work, you can check out her blog.

Here is a picture of the desk before I painted it.  It was already so pretty.  I knew painting and distressing it would only be icing on the cake.


Here is the after.


This was one of those projects that I figured would be pretty straight forward.  You know, the kind of thing you have done a million times and could do with your eyes closed.  Boy was I wrong.  

I completely ignored the fact that I would be painting white over a cherry stain.  Folks, that is a recipe for disaster, unless you take the proper steps.  For several hours, it looked like it belonged in Barbie's dream house.  It was BUBBLEGUM PINK!  Two trips to the store for the right sealer and umpteen coats of primer and paint later you can't even tell.


Well I can tell but can you?


So if you find yourself attempting a project like this where you will be painting over a dark or reddish stain, let me save you a bit of headache.
Mistakes I made-
::Do not sand off the varnish!  The varnish had the stain all sealed up so when I sanded it off, the stain was able to bleed all over into my white paint.  I had to turn right back around and reseal it all after I sanded.

::I should have simply used a stain blocking primer underneath my paint.  In case you are curious, I bought a can of KILZ primer with stain blocker, it is a miracle worker ;)

Normally you would not want to paint on top of varnish but since I was sanding most of the paint off anyway I didn't care if it stuck too well.

Once I read over this I realized how little sense I make when I explain things.  Sorry, you can just ignore all of that malarkey above if it makes no sense to you.

Have a fabulous first day of the week, I will be back soon to share more goodies.



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