0 Painting Projects

With all the HUGE projects we have going, it's nice to every once in a while take a quick break to something simple and immediately gratifying.

FIRST UP:  I talked about the old door before, but once I got it cut down to size, we needed to do something about the paint.

When we first got the door, it was apparent that it had been used as an exterior entry door.  One side of the paint was perfectly fine, the other (pictured above) was chipped and peeling off on most of the surface.  So Becky took it out to the garage with some paint stripper and started scraping.  The hardest part was getting the paint out of the crevasses without damaging the wood.

  

I took a power sander to the surface wood, and hand-sanded all the little carved sections, and got almost all the paint off.  I filled in all the nail holes with wood putty, sanded them down, and the door was almost like new.  My plan was to keep working on it, get it all down to wood, and stain it to match the countertops.  Becky did not agree, so while I was at work, she chose a color and called me to tell me she'd painted it.  I was a little annoyed...till I saw it.

 

The color is spectacular.  It works so well with the backsplash, and gives a much needed pop in a mostly-white kitchen.  Her inspiration was the terra cotta pot that you can see next to the door in the photo.  We don't always agree on color choices, but she won this round hands down.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We also had an old bookcase that used to be in the bathroom at the old house that was in desperate need of saving.  I thought it would be perfect in the little desk area below the stairs.  This project was much quicker, only taking about 4-5 hours, with no stripping required (3 coats plus drying time).

Still terrible at taking "before" photos, this is with the outside already painted white, and the inside with a first coat.  You can see the green it used to be along the bottom.

Because I planned on the shelf being next to the railing of the stairs, with the back clearly visible, I had to paint the back.  Unfortunately, because the back was thin strips of MDF (like most shelves are), it soaked in the paint like crazy, requiring 3 coats, and as a result bowed a little bit.  I'll be the only one that notices it, but it was annoying.  When I was finished, however, it was absolutely transformed:

Because the shelves went in so tight from past coats of paint, there's some touch up I need to do on the blue, but I think it turned out great.

Need to transform a room?  Go to the hardware store and buy some paint.  It doesn't take that long, and can really make a difference.  If you need inspiration on color, I found this blog - Design Seeds - which uses photographs of nature to create different color palettes that you can use, like this one or this one.  So shut off the TV for a day and get something done!