From Anti-rustic to Let's Get Chicken Wire

I've been wanting to tackle this make-over project for a long time, and finally got the motivation since we need it to display my cake stands on at Donato's.

I started with this (sorry they are blurry).

For Family Home Evening, we gathered the kids together and we all sanded.  It only took about 30 minutes with the 4 of us working together (Family Home Evening is something we participate in every Monday night as a family.  We drop everything and get together for a lesson, activity or games, and a treat).

Then we painted the first coat.  I used an ivory color, it was the lightest one on the color swatch.

Now here is the funny part- enter my husband.  Almost the entire time we are painting, he can't stop moaning and groaning because we are painting over this beautiful oak grain.  It was truly painful for him.  I kept telling him, yes is is pretty, but it is too outdated to display our things at the shop.  He still did not like it.

After the paint dried, it was time to sand again.  We roughed it up along the edges and certain spots to give it he rustic appeal we were going for.  Again, extremely painful for the man who just worked so hard to paint beautiful lines everywhere.  He did not like that stage of the process either!

Then we took a glaze that was tinted brown.  The Sherwin Williams guy helped me find the dark color that complemented the ivory I chose so that they had the same hues from the same color family.

A little glaze goes a very long way.  We worked together.  I used a paint brush and put the coat of glaze on, while hubby used a rag to wipe it off.  Something quite magical occurs and the grain of the wood pops out.  Mr. Skeptic was still doubting saying, "I don't know about this."  Although he was glad to see the grain again.

We completed the whole project in just 2 evenings.  It really does not take long.  If this was in our home and we used it a lot, it would have been best to put a coat of polyurethane on it.  We skipped that since this is mainly just for looks.

We needed to update the old knobs.  So 1990 they were.  My man was not looking forward to this part either.  "Are you sure they need to be painted?  They are in perfectly good condition."  

"Just trust me," I pleaded.

So we pull out the primer and he did his wonderful first coat.  Then we painted them Robin's Egg Blue.  I was going for something really different and fun that would be interesting to look at in the shop.

Aren't they cute and kinda sassy!?

Then, out of the blue, Mr. Skeptic says, "You know what would look really cool…. instead of putting the glass back in, lets get chicken wire.  We could paint it blue to match the knobs."

Huh?  Chicken wire?  He cracks me up.  He went from anti-rustic to let's get chicken wire in less that 48 hours!  I am glad he caught the vision!

Too bad we ran out of time.  We had to get it delivered and didn't have time to get chicken wire.  If he still has that artistic need, I told him he is free to do it anytime after we're settled in, but the glass needed to do for now.

Here is the finished product.

And here it is with my things on it…. more of those pictures to come.  And thank you to my husband who did the most work out of everyone (you did a fabulous job!).  It was so fun to work together on this project.