I thought this shelf had a really unusual shape, and bought it about 2 years ago with the intent of painting it.
Don't you love my Matryoshka dolls?
My mother bought them at Expo 67, the World's fair, from the USSR pavilion, and gave them to me a few years ago :)
Below the dolls is my antique "Anne of Green Gables" collection.
The green book on the extreme left next to the blue one, is first edition 1909!
Both of my parents and their families before them all the way to Scotland, are from Prince Edward Island.
I had a day with nothing on the calendar, so I decided to paint.
Yummy, doesn't this look delicious?
I loooooove red!!!
You can paint over anything with chalk paint, even fabric.
This piece of furniture has a cheap finish but the paint still went on really well.
I love a distressed look on furniture, and with chalk paint, you don't have to keep you strokes even.
You can just stroke the brush any direction you want, it's so easy!
It didn't take long to paint the shelf at all and it dries very fast, like 5 or 10 minutes.
See that little black stool in the background?
It's going to be painted soon.
I'm sort of sick of black furniture, and want to brighten them up.
The next step is to start sanding the shelf with a little sanding block, to add to the distressed look.
See how the original color of the shelf is showing through when it's sanded?
See the chalky look?
That will disappear soon, I'll show you how.
I really like the distressed look and it's so easy to attain!
The next step is to wax the shelf, that gets rid of the "chalk" look and gives it a really nice finish.
After the shelf is covered with a thin coat of wax which was applied with a round brush, I just polish it up with a buffing sponge.
It takes a little bit of elbow grease to polish up all the nooks and crannies, but it's not much work at all.
My shelf is painted, waxed, buffed and back in place, all in a matter of 2 or 3 hours :)
I think the dolls look much nicer on the red shelf, don't you?
