I'm pretty sure I told you all about Baby Noah's crib, but I'll recap (because, I'm up way too late working on the blog and I don't have time to read back through all of my recent posts to see how much I revealed.
Here we go:
My cute next door neighbor, Emily approached me when she was pregnant, having seen some of my projects, and asked me if I would paint her crib for her. I had two thoughts: 1. I was totally flattered and 2. I was instantly terrified. This is because when I paint my own stuff, I don't have to worry about being perfect, but a crib for someone else that people were actually going to see, that's a different story. However, even though I was extremely nervous, I decided to try it. What was the worse that could happen? Uh....I could destroy a perfectly good piece of furniture that she would end up hating (although, I would never know because she suffers from extreme and genuine sweetness and probably wouldn't say anything). But, with encouragement from Studly, my dad, and Emily (who assured me that she would love whatever I did), I started painting baby Noah's crib (Okay, okay...so it was about two months after she delivered it to my house, but I did start on it eventually...)
I thought spray painting it would be best for the look she wanted, but doing that in the dead of winter in Utah is ill-advised, so I used a chalk paint recipe that I got from Jamielyn over at I heart Naptime. I had used it once before, but it didn't work as well as I wanted it to, so I decided to try it again. I played with the mixture a little and it ended up working a lot better this time. I used regular interior paint from Lowe's in satin. The directions did say to use flat paint, but if you have learned anything by reading this blog, it's that directions are for wussy's....(until I screw something up royally.)
I also used 3 coats of Polycrylic in Gloss in order to seal it. I prefer to use Polycrylic because it doesn't yellow like the other poly (which I am not even going to attempt to finish spelling at this hour.)
*If you don't know what chalk paint is, you are missing out because it's awesome! It gives you more of a rustic look that is really easy to distress, which I personally like, being that my style is all "eclecta-cottage" (I really must trademark that.) Anyway, aside from that there is NO sanding or priming required because it is a really thick consistency and dries pretty fast. My hutch was actually a dark walnut color before I painted it white, and I used 2-3 coats (after I used 2-3 coats of another color that I decided against). "Official" chalk paint is known by Annie Sloan, but there are only a couple of stores that sell it in Utah that I know of. However, there are a few recipes that are much cheaper than Annie Sloan, which is hella expensive (although, I still want to try it).*
Anyway, Emily was kind enough to send me a few before pictures from when her second child was born, so you can see the transformation (because,we are all suckers for before and after pics, right?) :
...And here is the work in progress with yours truly playing contortionist...(Sidenote: this was not easy and it wasn't until after I instagrammed the picture that someone commented that they took their crib apart when they painted it, and it was much easier...D'OH!)
The crib was more challenging to paint than I had anticipated because of the bars (Sheesh, those took a while!) and I kept getting little drips here and there which is always the part of furniture painting that is the most "I'm going to throw this paint can through the wall!" frustrating. Some dog hair would also randomly decide to waft in the room and stick to the wet paint, so I did have to sand a few places away and repaint over them.
Obvious Tip: If you have a drip that you don't notice right away, I found that using a butter knife to scrape it off worked really well and made it much easier to fix.
It took me about a week to finish (well, maybe two...okay, probably three once I finally started...) and Destructo had to be temporarily displaced from his room in order for me to paint it (His room has the best light.) but when it was all over I was in love...kinda...Actually, I was really nervous, because even after being really careful and fixing all of the flaws, I was still finding little areas that I thought I should fix, but Emily was so close to having Noah that I knew if I didn't just get it over there and let her be the one to approve it, that he would be sleeping in a dresser drawer until he was 6 months old. I have to be honest though, I totally had that "impending diarrhea feeling" while in the process and even after she took it home. All in all, though, it was a fun and challenging project and I love that Emily loves it, which was SO important to me!
Here are the "after" pics:
I have to say, looking at the pictures, that it is pretty cute and don't you think Baby Noah's bedding is adorable? (Emily made the quilt herself, which I think is totally awesome.)
I am so grateful that Emily trusted me enough to let me do this for her and I really did enjoy the transformation process, even though I sound a little whiny in my post :)
(Oh, and sorry for the quality of the pictures. I had to take them from my iphone and I'm not too good at editing the exposure.)
Until I blog again....
Here we go:
My cute next door neighbor, Emily approached me when she was pregnant, having seen some of my projects, and asked me if I would paint her crib for her. I had two thoughts: 1. I was totally flattered and 2. I was instantly terrified. This is because when I paint my own stuff, I don't have to worry about being perfect, but a crib for someone else that people were actually going to see, that's a different story. However, even though I was extremely nervous, I decided to try it. What was the worse that could happen? Uh....I could destroy a perfectly good piece of furniture that she would end up hating (although, I would never know because she suffers from extreme and genuine sweetness and probably wouldn't say anything). But, with encouragement from Studly, my dad, and Emily (who assured me that she would love whatever I did), I started painting baby Noah's crib (Okay, okay...so it was about two months after she delivered it to my house, but I did start on it eventually...)
I thought spray painting it would be best for the look she wanted, but doing that in the dead of winter in Utah is ill-advised, so I used a chalk paint recipe that I got from Jamielyn over at I heart Naptime. I had used it once before, but it didn't work as well as I wanted it to, so I decided to try it again. I played with the mixture a little and it ended up working a lot better this time. I used regular interior paint from Lowe's in satin. The directions did say to use flat paint, but if you have learned anything by reading this blog, it's that directions are for wussy's....(until I screw something up royally.)
I also used 3 coats of Polycrylic in Gloss in order to seal it. I prefer to use Polycrylic because it doesn't yellow like the other poly (which I am not even going to attempt to finish spelling at this hour.)
*If you don't know what chalk paint is, you are missing out because it's awesome! It gives you more of a rustic look that is really easy to distress, which I personally like, being that my style is all "eclecta-cottage" (I really must trademark that.) Anyway, aside from that there is NO sanding or priming required because it is a really thick consistency and dries pretty fast. My hutch was actually a dark walnut color before I painted it white, and I used 2-3 coats (after I used 2-3 coats of another color that I decided against). "Official" chalk paint is known by Annie Sloan, but there are only a couple of stores that sell it in Utah that I know of. However, there are a few recipes that are much cheaper than Annie Sloan, which is hella expensive (although, I still want to try it).*
Anyway, Emily was kind enough to send me a few before pictures from when her second child was born, so you can see the transformation (because,we are all suckers for before and after pics, right?) :
...And here is the work in progress with yours truly playing contortionist...(Sidenote: this was not easy and it wasn't until after I instagrammed the picture that someone commented that they took their crib apart when they painted it, and it was much easier...D'OH!)
The crib was more challenging to paint than I had anticipated because of the bars (Sheesh, those took a while!) and I kept getting little drips here and there which is always the part of furniture painting that is the most "I'm going to throw this paint can through the wall!" frustrating. Some dog hair would also randomly decide to waft in the room and stick to the wet paint, so I did have to sand a few places away and repaint over them.
Obvious Tip: If you have a drip that you don't notice right away, I found that using a butter knife to scrape it off worked really well and made it much easier to fix.
It took me about a week to finish (well, maybe two...okay, probably three once I finally started...) and Destructo had to be temporarily displaced from his room in order for me to paint it (His room has the best light.) but when it was all over I was in love...kinda...Actually, I was really nervous, because even after being really careful and fixing all of the flaws, I was still finding little areas that I thought I should fix, but Emily was so close to having Noah that I knew if I didn't just get it over there and let her be the one to approve it, that he would be sleeping in a dresser drawer until he was 6 months old. I have to be honest though, I totally had that "impending diarrhea feeling" while in the process and even after she took it home. All in all, though, it was a fun and challenging project and I love that Emily loves it, which was SO important to me!
Here are the "after" pics:
I have to say, looking at the pictures, that it is pretty cute and don't you think Baby Noah's bedding is adorable? (Emily made the quilt herself, which I think is totally awesome.)
I am so grateful that Emily trusted me enough to let me do this for her and I really did enjoy the transformation process, even though I sound a little whiny in my post :)
(Oh, and sorry for the quality of the pictures. I had to take them from my iphone and I'm not too good at editing the exposure.)
Until I blog again....
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