New Bathroom Cabinet...and I'm back to painting!!!

It has been a while since I have picked up a paint brush...and I cannot remember why.  I love to paint, and I love to transform pieces from blah or so-so to beautiful!!!  I got a chance this weekend and I just love how it turned out. 

Our bathroom is getting ready for a paint makeover.  Right now it has a big ole patch of brown in the middle of a light blue/green wall.  Why?  We took down a gross 1980's big huge cabinet that was over the toilet.  We hadn't decided what color to paint so we just picked something to cover the unfinished sheetrock...that's why a big brown patch!  But that's getting ready to change...

First things first, we had to put something in there to hold what went in the cabinet.  That's when we found this new piece.  I'm not sure it's original condition, but when we bought it they had painted and lacquered the whole thing...like a TON of lacquer!  You could almost see your reflection in it the thing was so shiny.  It was cream and brown...not the colors I was going for...but I know how to remedy that! 

Chalk Paint!!!

 

 Here's where it started.  The top left is the original piece...at least as we got it.  I added 2 messy coats of Maison Blanche's Chocolate paint.  I didn't paint it everywhere since I only needed it where I planned to distress the piece.  I then covered the whole thing in two light coats of Maison Blanche's Magnolia (which is a lovely white).  Since the top and side inserts were already brown I didn't have to under paint them, so I just covered them with Maison Blanche's Robin's Egg. 

The bottom right picture shows my husband, Eric, adding a MDF shelf.  I painted it just like the top piece after we cut it to size.  I wanted this under there to put the TP to keep it out of the main body of the cabinet.  I love this little addition!

Once I was done painting I let everything dry overnight so that it would be ready to distress.  My favorite method for distressing a piece is using a wet cloth.  I have a big bag of rags that we bought for cheap at Harbor Freight and Tools.  It's just a bunch of white cut up t-shirts, but that works for me.  When wet distressing it can take a bit to remove the paint, but it can also come off quickly.  Just an FYI...when your piece is lacquered heavily prior to painting it is easy to take off too much paint during the distressing process.  Be careful how heavy you scrub!!!  I learned that today...a little adventure needless to say.

One of my favorite parts of this piece is the legs.  I normally don't like this style, but it paints and distresses so beautifully.  I also love the scroll detail at the bottom.  When I purchased this piece I didn't even know that was there.  It was so monotone and lacquered that the detail was lost.  Not anymore!!!  Oh, and I love the brown peeking through the blue...so pretty (with a happy sigh!!!)

Next step is the finishing and this time I tried something new...Hemp Oil!  I saw a quick demonstration of this in Wichita when visiting family.  She literally wiped it on and voila...DONE!  No buffing, no problem!  I loved it.  I spent some time looking up some tips and tutorials for applying it since I've never worked with hemp oil.  I picked some up this weekend and grabbed a rag to apply it to the piece.  I started on the side and quickly realized that a rag, no matter how "lint free" it might be, would be a pain in the tail!!!  It shed as I applied it the whole time.  It was quite annoying.  I did both sides and the top then moved to the inside.  That's when I remembered Miss Mustard Seed saying that we could use a brush.  Bingo!!!

I went to my stash and grabbed a 4" chip brush and poured some oil out on a paper plate with higher sides.  Man, that is the way to go!!!  I highly recommend using a brush for Hemp Oil.  I'm not sure that it's a less expensive finish vs. furniture wax, but it sure does spare some elbow grease with no buffing required.  I also read that multiple coats of Hemp Oil can be used on a piece.  One of the other benefits of Hemp Oil is it's heat resistance.  Wax will melt under higher heat making it a pain for table tops and other such items.  Hemp Oil will not melt.  I don't believe it seals quite as well, but I like how it turned out at this point.  Also, it did tend to discolor my white paint a bit.  I don't recommend it if you're looking for a pure white finish.  That would call for the clear furniture wax.

After oiling the whole piece I decided it still needed a bit more character.  So after research I decided to add some dark wax.  I just hit the spots that would tend to get "dirty" to add some age to it.  It really came to life at that point.  I just love dark wax!!!

Just look at the dimension it adds to this piece.  I love variance in colors with shading here and there.  That's what dark wax on chalk paint gets you...which is why I love it so much.  I will probably have to buff the piece to make sure and seal up all that wax.  I may add a thin layer of clear furniture wax as well since it is going in the bathroom.  That should seal it from dampness.  Oh, well...hard work and elbow grease never hurt anyone!

The last major step (minus adding more wax...) was to finish off the door.  It looks like this piece used to have glass in the door, but it wasn't there when we purchased it.  No problem...that's just one less thing to clean...I can always add chicken wire.  Plus, that gives me someplace to put hair clips and such.  I also switched out the hinges and the door pull.  I found a beautiful knob at Hobby Lobby and since I'm bringing silver in with the chicken wire I loved the fact that it's silver as well.

It doesn't hurt either that the silver filigree is quilled!  I think quilling is beautiful so this works perfectly.  I haven't mentioned my baskets...that will be in a future post.  I purchased baskets at Hobby Lobby on sale last week.  None of them were the color they needed to be so I transformed them...well, I haven't quite finished that process.  I still have liners to sew for the white ones.  Ok, no more giving that project away.  I'll save it for later. 

Here's the finished piece!  It turned out awesome!!!  Now I just have to get the bathroom finished so I can pull it all together. 

Till next time...

Jennifer