Diverting myself with paint

I was inspired by The Nester last week to start yet another project. Well, that and the white paint was already out because the Girl was painting her swan puzzle.

We got a lot of interesting furniture and collectibles, when Aaron’s uncle Gordon died. (OK mostly collectibles. Have you seen our apartment? It’s super tiny considering the 5 people residing here. But we did finally get some things to sit on thanks to him.) He had a house full of stuff. We know several are quite valuable. But then there are all of those items that you just can’t tell if they are valuable antiques, or something he just liked at a thrift store, or both.

But as Madam Nester says, “If you don’t love it, why is it in your house?” Or something like that. I think it was her. I could be imagining that part.

Our apartment is pretty dark; red on the walls, dark wood tones in much of the furniture, green and brown paisley rug, red couch and chair, and saddest of all, brown fake wood veneer on all of the cabinets. I really want to lighten it up a bit. So I started with an end table. I may have defaced a valuable antique, but I figured that since there were signs of pet teeth on one corner and the finish was all scuffed I wasn’t likely to make it worse.

It’s a cute table though.

I was certain I had wrecked it when I got the first coat of white on. It was way too bright, didn’t go well with the tile, and it worried me. So then I added some maple brown paint to my white, and some yellow, and tried again. The off white worked much better, but it wasn’t until I started to sand it to give it a distressed finish, or prepare it for a completely different color if I needed to redo it, that I really fell in love with it.

You can see all of the little carved details now. And the little corner where I keep it, next to the dark red sofa, and the fake wood cabinet looks a little brighter now.

Of course, then I put the gigantic stacks of books that Aaron is currently reading or referring to back on top of it so you can hardly see it at all. But since that’s it’s job, in order to keep his desk a bit more clear I’ll have to move the stacks to show it off if you come by and visit me. I tried that trick of turning all the bindings toward the wall so the different colors didn’t show, but I noticed this morning that he’s turned them all around again. It’s like he doesn’t even care about having an attractively arranged end table. Oh. Right.

Also I cleaned off the desk. Inspiring heights of home design I know. You should be jealous. That’s mostly books under the desk too. And in our storage closet… that’s right, more books. We haven’t the room for anymore book shelves. And we can’t get rid of them. We need them for blowing our noses. What? You thought we actually read or something. Pshaw! Who has time for that?