Well, it has been WAY too long since I last posted. I've been busy working away on many projects for the last 4 months. Our big "winter project" was the finishing of the last unfinished room in our house...our laundry room. We (nearly) finished in early February and I can honestly say, it is now a pleasure to walk into that room and do a less-than-favorite chore. One of the projects that has been holding me up and prevents me from saying were are truly "finished" with the room makeover is the subject of today's post. I had in my head something very specific that I wanted to use as a storage space for my iron and various laundry sprays, lint roller, etc. I have kept my eyes peeled for an antique wall cupboard every time my husband and I are out antiquing, and trust me, we've been in a lot of stores the last 4 months. I just haven't been able to find what I pictured in my head (that NEVER happens. Ha!) Anything that I found that came close was way too spendy and a little too "antique" for me, i.e. falling apart. I finally came to terms with the fact that I was going to have to build what I wanted myself. I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially the aged paint finish. Here's how I did it: First I built a frame with one shelf in the center. My measurements came from how high I needed each shelf to be in order to fit my iron and the tallest spray bottles I had. Here's the frame glued and clamped up:
Then I made a flat face plate of sorts with a 1" x 4" that I ripped down to be 1 1/2" wide. Here it is glued and clamped up:
Next, I "married" the frame and the face plate and glued and clamped them as well.
For the door, I used left over bead board from our laundry room walls. I left it one ply thick (about 1/4"), but added two horizontal braces on the back to prevent warping. You can see this in the final pictures. I cut it to fit the opening on the front, minus about 1/8" around all four sides so it wouldn't be too tight of a fit. Once the glue had dried on the shelf itself, I sanded it smooth, making any edges flush that weren't already. Now on to the paint. I knew from the beginning I wanted to have an antique green, chippy paint. I had seen a product at one of our favorite antique stores called "chipping cream." It's by Country Living and ever since I first saw it, I wanted to have a reason to try it. I looked at a lot of pictures online of both faux antique green finishes and genuine antiqued surfaces. I decided on a darker green for the base coat (the color that would show through) and a brighter green for the topcoat. I used Rust-Oleum 2x Coverage spray paint (my absolute FAVORITE spray paint, and it comes in tons of colors). I used Hunt Club Green as the base coat (shown) and Leaf Green for the
topcoat.
I did prime the whole piece with a brush and Killz primer first since it was new, raw wood. Once that was dry, I sprayed the whole outside of the cupboard and a little of the inside, as well as both sides of the door, with the Hunt Club Green. Once the green was completely dry, I painted on a generous layer of the chipping cream in the areas I wanted the base color to show through. The chipping cream basically dries to kind of a hard, waxy texture and prevents the top coat from adhering well in the areas where you have painted it. You can kind of see in the pictures below how I painted it on. I focused especially on edges and areas that would naturally get more wear.
The chipping cream has to dry completely before you can paint on the top coat. When I did that layer, I made sure to fully spray the inside of the cabinet, since I hadn't completely covered it with the darker green. I didn't plan on doing a lot of scuffing off of the topcoat on the inside, just a little on the top and front edge of the middle shelf.
With the leaf green I did 3-4 thin coats within about 15 minutes to get good coverage. I let the topcoat dry for about 3 hours. The directions on the chipping cream are to start removing the topcoat, as SOON as it is dry, in the areas over which you painted the chipping cream. I used a flat plastic scraper that is designed to scrape pots and pans when washing dishes. It worked really well. I did try a flat metal putty knife, but that was too aggressive and dug a little too deep in some areas.
...and a close up of the distressing...
...and a close up of the distressing...
I had some old latches that I got from an antique store in Lacrosse WI for another project, but never used, and some hinges from an antique store in Albertville that I found in the original packaging and all! Once attached, here's the final cupboard:
...and all loaded up...
It still needs to be mounted, I'm thinking about how I want to do that. I'm very happy with how it turned out. My husband just came out of the laundry room and was heard saying "I can't believe how old your new shelf looks." I'll consider that success!
