Saturday, September 04, 2010

Putting the FUN in FUrNiture!

This post is all about a labor of love called the Armoire For the Guest Room. I bought it for $50 on Craigslist. As usual, I forgot to take a "before" pic. But it kinda looked like this:

I armed myself with some Internet-based instructions and a dream to paint it white. The armoire was laminate pressboard, which I've always heard is difficult to paint. But after sanding and priming, the paint rolled on pretty easily. I was feeling great! So I followed my favorite bloggers' advice and moved on to the next step: coating it with a clear polyurethane. So easy! I left it alone to dry for extra awesomeness, and went out to the garage today to put it together and enjoy my new life as an armoire owner. But it soon became clear that the poly coat was not.


Can you tell how YELLOW it is? Can you tell how MAD I was by the use of these CAPITAL LETTERS? I ended up having to buy more paint and add two more coats. But I guess it was OK because it inspired me to repaint the dresser I've had since I was 5, which also lives in the guest room. (New knobs from Anthropologie made it even better!)



ANYWAY, after a long day and a slight setback thanks to some poorly timed sprinklers, I finally got the armoire into the guest room and started turning my life around:


Now, one more detail about this armoire. It came with a super lame feature designed to help you set up your TV:


At first I was just going to paint over it, but was inspired by a cool little product at Target -- a sticker made for college dorm rooms. With that and a roll of sticky white shelf paper, this is how it turned out:


I love it. I also need a break from painting furniture. Maybe my next piece will be purchased the way I actually want it.

2 comments:

rebecca said...

I'm going to start painting my cabinets next week. They are not pressboard or laminate, thank goodness. But I am still a little concerned that it will be a frustrating and long project.
After reading your post I think it *will* be frustrating and long. Maybe I'll skip the painting and just cover the cabinets with shelf paper and wall decals.

Lindsay said...

Yeah I need to paint mine too. Think it'll be pretty grueling!