Over the summer, my mother-in-law brought over a bright red shelf she had found at a cute antique shop up in Litchfield. Litchfield County sits to the North of us and it’s an absolute haven for antique lovers.
She picked it up for $15 and decided that she couldn’t really use it in her home. She offered it to me, and I thought it would look nice painted a softer color, hanging in our living room or perhaps one of the bedrooms. I took it off her hands and popped it in the garage.
When I was on my chalk painting spree over the summer, I thought it would look good in the Versailles color that went on my front porch rocker and started to paint it the soft green shade.
For some reason, I painted half of the shelf, so when I decided to pull it out of the garage recently, it was literally half green and half red. Griff looks as confused as the shelf.
The funny thing is I could have left the shelf as it was, in the bright red color, and used it in the nursery with all of the red accents I have going on in there but alas, it wasn’t just red anymore. The shelf had a personality complex at this point, so I decided to paint it all white instead. That way, if I didn’t like it for the nursery, it could go literally anywhere else in the house. The exposed nail holes didn’t bother me enough over the summer to fill them, as you can see from this side shot.
Since the shelf was going to be white, I knew that they’d bother me in the end, so I grabbed my wood filler and went to town.
With the holes filled and dried, we were ready for paint.
I used Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint in “Pure White” and it took two solid coats, but I added a third just to be safe. I don’t have any progress shots, so we’ll skip right to the finished product. I decided to use it in the nursery after all, and after boasting at least two different personalities previously, the shelf finally looks put together!
After briefly considering the space above the changing table for the custom art…
…I opted for the shelf instead, since I decided the two custom art pieces would look better together. The art ended up being hung here. I hung the shelf myself, not without swearing.
The best part is that this little nursery addition was $0, thanks to the gifted shelf from my mother-in-law and having the paint on hand from the nursery rocker.
Cute, right? I’m happy that I chose white, because if I feel like it could be better utilized in a different room down the line, I’m not stuck with one color that would otherwise cater to a specific scheme. This will be the baby’s view.
It’s high enough up so the baby won’t be able to grab it for at least couple of years. Griff approves, too.
Tell me someone else out there has changed their mind about paint color more than once… or then again… maybe the shelf is crazy like me. :)
With that done, let’s check-in with the nursery check-list and see what else we have to get done with (+/-) 3 weeks to go…
Not too shabby… more to come!