Just Do It!!!!

O.K. So you know how every post I have made in many months that has involved the foyer to my home has been prefaced by "I still don't like the way this looks"? Well, after I posted that the last time, I decided I should "just do it". What did I have to lose? After all, the piece of furniture had no family history and the mirror behind it was the remnants of my Tawanded hall tree-which, quite frankly, I am still sort of sorry that I did, but that's another story. Maybe I will feel better if I ever get anything in that area that I like again.

Anyhow, I headed to Lowes (yes, I still love them even though there IS that one employee that I don't LIKE so much) and picked out a color. It makes it kind of easy when you really have no preconceived idea about where you're heading. My thoughts were to go black with this piece, but being the summetrical person that I am, the balance on this wall would really have been "off" if I did that. There are several pieces in this room that are black and the rest are a walnut stained pine. I don't much care for oak-which is what this piece was.

This piece came to us when my husband was trying to help out an elderly woman in our church when she became ill and it was obvious that she needed some help. Somehow he took on more and more as the years passed and when she finally passed away, her family came in and took whatever they wanted and then told him to do what he would with whatever was left. There were a few small pieces I took (vases, decorative bowls, etc. that reminded me of her) and then I thought this piece might help us furnish our 3 guest rooms as all of our girls had recently gone off to college or new jobs. It has been used as a side table in our front guest room all these years and when I was in the mood one day to mix things up, I dragged it in to the foyer where it has been-and I have complained about it-ever since.

My plan was to paint it black and then a camel color coming back to do a lot of sanding to reveal the bottom colors. It was an easy project because the more distressed it looked, the better I would like it. No perfection here-so super easy for me.

The black flat paint that I had used on other pieces went on really easily. The camel is a satin finish and was a bit more temperamental. It needed 2 coats. I still wasn't happy with the look so I just started dry brushing back more black then camel until it was getting closer.

I then remembered the bottle of mocha glaze left in my stock pile that I never used on my kitchen cabinets. I love glaze. It is so easy. I just brushed it on heavily and then removed it until I was happy.

And here is where we are right now. Is it exactly what I would have bought if I had all the money in the world and resources available to me? Probably not. But, is it better than the country looking oak that didn't match anything else in my house? You bet!

I filled in the holes from the old drawer pulls and will be heading back to Lowes to buy some oil rubbed bronze cup pulls similar to this:

And now, of course, my inexpensive make-over takes on its own life as I realize that I also strongly dislike that mirror. Haven't really given much thought to what else I could hang there. Even though there are 3 other mirrors in this room, a mirror just seems right. I am sort of envisioning a LARGE oval mirror perhaps flanked by 2 hanging lanterns (which I could have gotten for 80% off the day I was in HL in a monsoon and hubby was encouraging me to buy and I for some reason didn't think I had a place to use them....but, I digress). My daughter has done a similar display in her new foyer (of course she has the large Ravenswood Vineyard framed poster hanging there which I have coveted since the day I first saw it...but, once again, I digress). In any case, I suspect I will find myself on the hunt for something new to use in this area. We shall see. Stay tuned.