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:
