Southern Hospitality

Painting a Media Cabinet

by Rhoda September 21, 2017

We are continuing progress on the house and getting settled in and it’s been exciting!  I think we are finally able to breathe a little and start to feel normal in this house.  It is really strange to move to a new house.  It’s a little emotionally exhausting too with new surroundings and everything feeling different, but it’s all good stuff and it’s nice to have this house feeling more like home every week.  We still have so much we want to do, but I’m very grateful that the house is so nice and clean and easy to live with until we figure out al the details of what we want to do in each area.

One little project I did right before I moved was to paint the media cabinet that I had bought from Homegoods a few years ago.  It’s a solid wood rustic piece with lots of chippiness and a reclaimed vibe.  I liked it a lot when I got it and it was different than most of the things in my house, so I thought it was a fun mix with my more traditional things.  I don’t want a whole house of chippy or rustic anything and I don’t fully embrace the whole reclaimed wood everything trend that has been going on for a few years.  I like small touches, but certainly not a whole house of it.  Mark definitely does not love the chippy paint look in furniture and so to make it work for us, I decided to paint it. He had mentioned that and I finally decided that was the thing to do and I’m so glad I did. I actually love it even better now!

Here’s a reminder of what the cabinet looked like in my old family room. Those shutters won’t go back up for now, but maybe I’ll find a place to use them on a future porch.

Very Bohemian and rustic, chippy.  But being solid wood, that’s always a plus and it’s substantial and a great piece for storage and adding the TV.  I still wanted to keep a little bit of the rustic vibe, so decided to leave the 8 panels on the doors as they were and those colors would be fun to leave and highlight.

I used some paint I already had on hand from Maison Blanche, a really good chalk type paint and I used the color, Hurricane.  This paint company has lots of products to choose from, especially if you’re into painted furniture and using products for distressing, waxing, and more.  I like painted furniture, but it’s not something I do all the time.  When I do have a piece that needs updating though, I don’t hesitate to change it up and make it better with paint.  This isn’t sponsored, but I’ve worked with Maison Blanche before and they sent me paint to use. It’s a nice chalky paint to use and this color worked great on my piece.  It’s sort of a gray/green shade. Chalk paint doesn’t require priming first, which is a big plus.

This project went really fast and it was done in about 2 1/2 hours total.  I used a 2″ paint brush and painted one coat the first day, the 2nd coat the next day and then came back and used their Satin Varnish on top which adds a little bit of sheen (not much) and protects the piece from chipping.  I prefer Satin Varnish on top of my painted pieces instead of using wax, but my style is not super distressed, so I tend to paint my pieces solidly and don’t do a lot of distressing anymore.  I’ve gone through distressing phases, but it’s not something I love much anymore.  A little maybe, but not a lot.  You can check out that link for all the products in the line.  I haven’t used them all, but what I have used are really good.

After one coat, it looked like this, still a bit of wood showing through.

And after 2 coats and the Satin Varnish on top, it looks like this.  I carefully painted around the 8 panels and the hardware and I just love how it turned out.

And here it is in our new house.  I really do love it even better now and Mark certainly does!  Now it’s something we can both live with.  The piece really fits the wall well and still leaves plenty of room for walking through to the guest room to the right. Mark has already drilled holes and put all the boxes in the cubby in the middle.

I hope our blending of styles gives you ideas on how you can change things up when you’re blending styles with a spouse.  My other house was totally my style, but this one will definitely be a blend of both of us.  We  do have many things that we like in common, but other things not so much, so it will be a compromise along the way of both our styles.  I’ll show you other examples of that along the way, as we’ve already done that with some other things as well.  I want both of us to be comfortable and happy in this new house, after all we both live here!

Mark is a creative guy and I’ll be sharing more of that with you later on.  Not only is he an IT guy with that kind of brain, but he restores vintage Art Deco lamps as a hobby and that’s something you don’t see everyday, so I’ll be sure and let you see some of his lamps.  We will no doubt have some of them in the house!

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Filed Under: House Renovation, paint project 34 Comments