ORC Week 3: DIY and Amazing Reveal

As we slide into Week 3 of the One Room Challenge, this DIY is done!   I’ll show you my completely amazing reveal of this before and after!  We are all at home more than normal and it’s so amazing to have something like the One Room Challenge to keep us busy, plus we get content. Lots and lots of content.

Why the Mid-Point Matters:

You get to see process pictures and they all look, a lot bit terrible. In fact. The process part. The messy middle of Interior Design is hanging out right here, my friend.  It’s right smack dab in the middle.   This next week is the 1/2 way mark and I have to say I think I got my biggest before and after. – already.  Just like the misery of a partially finished project.   Right now I have this one area of hope. It reminds me that ‘I’ve got this’ and it will motivate me to stick with it and KEEP GOING!

It’s obviously too early to be game over guys. But it would be so compelling for me to brag on myself a little. Cause how can I hold out?

I woke up a 2 am with the lingering sensation of body aches…   Then the last 7 days flash before my eyes ..and with suspicion— that one terrible person who gave me the beer disease?  You know which one I am talking about.

It’s 2 am., my neck hurts and I have and ache in my arm and back and I was a little under the weather.    I full blown believed, at 2 am, that my soreness (Spoiler– from repainting a piece of furniture) was my death knell.

But to my surprise when, my brain awoke later that same morning, I realized that my painting project was at fault. Alas ….I would go on and live to seize the day!

Before:

This cabinet is so big that I thought it was a built-in when I first met my husband.  Guess what his favorite color to decorate with is?

 

I played around with the piece, digitally hoping to find a solution other than brown. I had some black paint and I thought I would check to see if that was my solution. (BTW no one should look at cans of paint in their garage as their BEST option.) But I was being optimistic.

But it was too harsh for such a large piece and deep down I always knew a wood finished piece was best. There was a hope this would read more transparent and make the red look like a brown.– eh no…

I ran a little white wax on top of the black…hoping it could make the black softer but it just looked like it had a run in with zinc sunblock.

Plan B:  buy some inexpensive chalk paint and start over.  Fingers crossed…. that this is a solution that would both save time and money…. which we all already know the answer to that one.

This one was for the birds: 

If the messy middle had a mascot. This cabinet would be it.

You know it makes things worse when you have a client move in during a remodel….  Well, the “wrens” decided to move into the wine rack again…Somewhere between the black coat the the flesh tone layer.   They voiced their relationship problems all weekend loooonng. I don’t know if it was male or female.   One would set up and wait for me to leave…. then carry in the nesting material,– while the other would yell if they saw me.

The whole time I was near their new abode I would hear their alarm. Now I am trying to get it done for both of our sanity.  Plus make sure there is no wet paint they would encounter. I was hoping to get it done and let them settle in- or run them off. Either is OK.  I don’t think they understand the importance of the One Room Challenge.  I’m under pressure.

I kept going, once the fleshy toned- grey was applied I took a transparent brown glaze to this devil:

I thought about adding a decoration to the back of the cabinet. My first thought was to use a Mirth Studio flooring sticker. I figure it would weather the elements.

Originally I had my heart set on the Mirth Studio flooring sticker but when I realized it was $5.00 for a 6″ square instead of 1 sq ft. I decided to spend the money somewhere else.

I cut canvas pieces to fill the space then proceeded to cover them with a mish-mash of color.

There was really no need to spend a lot on the back of the cabinet.  It is just the back drop for the accessories.   Painting canvas on the floor, removed me from the bird’s space and allowed me to waterproof them and let them dry.

Hey there you handsome devil.  You have never looked so good!