Saturday, May 26, 2012

Turning a FAIL into a FINE!

I'm a believer into turning mistakes into learning experiences. You'd think by now I'd have LOTS of learning experiences...

So what happens when you try something that's a failure?  Why, you try something else, of course!

I had this secretary hutch that I'd bought off of Craigslist for $40.  (I love Craigslist!)


I liked the lines of if, but the woodsy pine wood thing going on, not so much.

I got it into my head that I wanted it dark brown, so I first proceeded to use chalk paint that I'd whipped up and paint it dark brown. 


The brown was better than the woodsy pine thing going on, so I painted the entire piece of furniture.

And ended up with a HUGE BROWN PIECE OF FURNITURE!


Even if I decided to distress this, it wasn't going to make it less of a HUGE BROWN PIECE OF FURNITURE.  You can tell that I was hating this so much, I didn't even bother to put the rest of the drawers in for the pic. 

So, onto Plan B.  (I'm a firm believer in having a Plan B.)  I had some sage colored acrylic paint that I decided to make into chalk paint, so I thought a sage secretary hutch would be better than a brown secretary hutch. 

What I got was a BUTT UGLY SAGE PIECE OF FURNITURE.


The lighting in this pic is less than optimal, but trust me, it was absolutely, 100% a BUTT UGLY SAGE PIECE OF FURNITURE.

Onto Plan C.  (Did I mention that I also think it's a good idea to have a Plan C?)

This time, I was finished playing around.  I mean, how many freaking coats of paint can one piece of furniture actually have?  How many ugly paint colors did I have in my supply?  How many times can I shut the cats out of the guest room to repaint a piece of furniture? 

Plan C depended on white paint.  Yes, plain, ole vanilla white paint.  See what a difference it makes?


I even added cute little knobs.  (Found at the local Habitat ReSale store and Lowes.)



For the back of the shelves, I took foamcore board, cut it to size, then covered it with fabric.  A bit of tape held the fabric in place, and because the foamcore is cut to size, it stays in place.


To refresh your memory, here is before:


And after: