This project just may kill me

If you want to see the update on my project, go here.

Two weeks ago, I signed up for a Procrastinator's Party on The Inspired Room to help me get going on my armoire transformation. Of course, in those two weeks, I had QUITE a few volunteer projects for school and neighborhood going and totally underestimated how much free time I would have.

When I saw Melissa's reminder yesterday that reveal day is today, I freaked! Then I ran to Home Depot. And then I got down to business. (I procrastinated even the Procrastinator's Party, gulp.)



Here is my very crooked Before photo:



I DID sand and clean the whole thing before yesterday. So it was ready for painting. I primed it before heading out to get the paint.



Ignore that little strip I missed.
I just painted right over that later!

My plan was to do a crackle finish, which means, I needed to do a whole coat of blue paint. Then a coat of the crackle medium, THEN a coat of the creamy white paint on top. And since I've never done crackle, I did a sample board to test my technique. Good thing, because, my friends, crackling is not for the feint-of-heart!

I am NOT a meticulous painter. Rocket Man - meticulous doesn't even BEGIN to describe his painting technique. It is nearly scientific. And perfect. (And it takes a long time, but who can rush perfection, right?)

Me? I'm a slap-a-coat-of-paint-on-it kinda gal. In most cases, a halfway-decent paint job is better than none at all, right? (That sound you just heard was Rocket Man falling to the floor.)

Well, let me just say, with crackle, there is no room for error. You only get one shot to coat your surface because the second pass with the brush messes up the finish and gets it all gunky. (Think of painting on top of tacky glue. As that is pretty much what you are doing.) And I'm a paint-over-my-mistakes kind of painter. So a GIANT ARMOIRE might not have been the best choice for my first crackle job. (Something tiny and completely flat would have been good. But what is like that??)


I finally got the hang of it over on the right there.

So after testing it on my sample board, I decided I was better off removing the doors so I could lay them flat and work outside. (Did I mention I am painting this thing in our cramped bedroom with a wall and a dresser jammed up on either side? No? I didn't? Well, yes I am.)

Once I removed the doors, I realized I should probably paint the inside of those too. (See? This is becoming Pandora's box.) So now I have to sand and prime those. Most of the inside will have lovely wallpaper (see below), but the edges need paint. And now I'm debating To Crackle or Not To Crackle on the inside? You and I are the only ones who will ever see it, right, Internet?



Also, I'm planning on leaving that two-inch strip around the door panel blue. And out in the sunshine, I realized, I am not so wild about that blue. It doesn't matter under the crackle because you really can't tell. But I will need a darker blue for that strip. And I've got to keep the crackle medium off there. Which will involve a lot of taping. See what I mean about Pandora's box?

But, the good news is, I started! And I although I may be a bit lax on my painting technique, I am quite compulsive about finishing things like this. I don't know how many coats of paint it will take (did I mention the polyurethane that goes on top?) or how many more weeks before it's done, but it ALREADY looks 100 times better than it did when I bought it. (And can I just remind you, it was FIFTY-NINE dollars? $59!)

When I'm all finished, I'm thinking of turning my drop cloths into curtains, a la Layla from The Lettered Cottage. Is she brilliant or what? (I'm using the inside of the drop cloth to splatter my paint so that side would be facing the window!)