Furniture Painting

Ten years ago when I bought my condo I was in a Mexican Hacienda-like phase of decorating.  Rustic pines, wrought iron, warm colors of a sunset.  You may recall me threatening this armoire a few blogs back:

My parents bought me this armoire when I moved into my condo.  We got it at a nude furniture store.  I was so excited to hand distress and stain in.  I ended up using Briwax.

And now I'm over it.  I decided to paint it black.  I thought I'd be able to prime my wood and then just paint right over.  I took all the doors off because I was going to save time by spray painting their primer on.

Great idea, right?  It was.  Except the Briwax was still on the wood after 10 years.  I'm not sure where I thought the Briwax would have gone, but I knew it wasn't sealed and figured it had been long enough for the primer to set.  Not so much.

It was coming off with just a fingernail.  At this point I had to go back to the drawing board.  I hand scraped as much wax as I could get off and then sanded the whole thing down.

Next I coated the entire thing with Zinsser BIN Primer.  It claimed to seal stains, stick to all surfaces, and block odors.  My armoire had no odors but that still seemed like a niffy claim so I bought a quart.  The funny thing is once I got it coated, I began to think I liked the armoire white instead of black. 



Note:  This is right where Ashley breaks Ryan's heart on The Bachelorette

I like the way the white just blends in and the furniture doesn't seem too obtrussive in the room.  I think this will allow me to do more around the armoire (like art on the walls or things on the ground).  As luck would have it I already had some white semi-gloss paint.  So after a couple more coats I finally had my armoire all back together!

Yay!  It took a couple of weeks to get it done but I like it!  Let's hope the paint lasts longer than the relationship that results from this season's Bachelorette.  Sorry, Ashley.