First off: I realize that now we have a ton of projects that will be happening, and not nearly the equivalent time to blog. As a result I’ll probably be behind the next couple of weeks (maybe even months). I’d really like to commit to blogging 3 times a week, but even that frequency probably won’t be able to keep me completely up to date with what’s going on. So, please be patient 🙂 I’ll be filling you in on all the happenings as we move along, but just because life is, well, life, it will take me a little while to keep you up to date. I have to say I’m excited to have so much work to blog about again 🙂 🙂 🙂

Alright, now let’s get down to business.

This is a short story about 18 coats of paint. Thankfully it’s not 1 project, but 3. The first project? These bookcases

We got these bookcases from my step dad (frequently called CBH here on this ol’ blog) because he just sold the house he and my mom lived in. And a quick side note – you may be wondering why I refer to it as HIM selling the house THEY used to live in. Well, about 4 years ago they separated. And then recently they got divorced. Yes, very sad. I was very sad. But, the good news about my family is that we are very weird – my mom and dad still get along great, and my mom and step dad still get along great. We are a very successfully divorced family. And I LOVE that. My mom and Zoe frequently have breakfast dates with CBH when my mom watches her and I still see him a lot. Technically speaking I guess he is not actually my “step dad” anymore – but my mom and he got together when I was so young that he will always be my step dad. And his son will always be my step brother. They’re family. And they are another uncle and grandpa to my girls. That’s just how we roll.

Okay? 🙂 Moving on.

So we inherited this bookcase from my step dad when he was getting rid of some of the furniture he and my mom used to have. This is actually one in a pair, and I thought they would be perfect for Zoe’s new room. The only kicker was that I wasn’t too much of a fan of the super yellow pine. I wanted to give it a little bit of a makeover. Painting it crisp white with a bright, fun color in the back I thought would jazz it up just right. The only thing was this took A LOT of paint. 10 coats in all. Not ALL OVER, but 10 different coats.

It started with 4 coats of primer

I honestly should have used a better stain blocking primer and I could have gotten away with maybe one less coat. The Glidden primer wasn’t good at blocking the knots and yellow finish to the wood

But after 4 coats I was done. And I moved on to the color coat.

I used Benjamin Moore Advance. Chris did a really good paint test for what the best interior, semi-gloss, white trim paint (still need to finalize that post…) and I followed the advice of that test for what the best paint to use was – it covered well, and held up to scratching (and Zoe will probably beat this to shit).

I got started

The good thing was that this only took 2 coats of paint, yay!

Then I moved on to the color in the back. One time a couple weeks ago when we were at HD I picked out a couple BRIGHT colors that I could recall were in her fabric and held up the 3 swatches for Zoe and let her pick the color she wanted. She picked Ralph Lauren Racer Pink (I got it color matched in Glidden). The thing about reds and deep pinks like this is it really takes a couple coats for good coverage. I haven’t found that the paint/primer in one really helps. So it took 4 coats of this paint to really give it a good, even coverage

The good news is that after the TEN coats of paint (4 primer, 2 color coats, 4 pink coats on the back), it was finally done

And I actually love it. I’m not a super big pink fan myself, but I do actually really love the bold, bright and saturated color. Good pick Zoe 🙂

The next 5 coats of paint? The mirror.

Zoe loves a mirror that my mom had in her apartment. My mom is currently living in Croatia. Yes, Croatia. She took off on some European travels a few years ago and fell in love with the country. She’s been back several times and recently decided that she wanted to spend 50% of her time living over there. So that’s what she does now 🙂 In the process of making that decision she pared down her life a lot and got rid of a lot of furniture (she’ll live a couple months of the time here in the Bay Area and then go down to San Diego and live with my brother and his wife a couple of weeks a year as well). Yes, she is a fabulous gypsy 🙂 One of the things she was getting rid of was this giant mirror that Zoe took a particular liking to when my mom had it propped up on the ground

I had wanted a mirror in her room and my mom asked if I wanted this one. Perfect. I thought a new paint job would spruce it up well. And because I liked that bright pop of Racer Pink so much with the bookcases I thought it would be perfect for the mirror as well.

I probably could have saved myself maybe ONE coat if I had used primer. But I didn’t. So covering up the blue took 5, even coats

But that is pretty pretty, right?

That’s 15 coats right there. Where’s the other 3? Zoe’s light fixture.

I went off to hunt for something to repurpose several weeks ago. I found this crazy light

Yes, I know, it looks a little insane. But I like that it was a little different. And I thought painting it a bright color and switching out this glass dangles would make it work. I want Zoe’s room to be FUN, and this light made me think of that.

So when we went to the hardware store a couple weeks ago I did the same thing – I picked a couple cans of a bright color of spray paint and she picked Plum. We taped off the light and hung it in the garage ready for painting. Zoe was very interested in the process so we actually let her paint some. Spray paint is obviously not good to inhale, so we just let her spray a couple of bursts. Then we went outside and let Chris paint it all. And 3 coats later it was done. I of course forgot to take a picture of it 🙂 I still need to hang the new wire and dangles, but I’ll get to that later this week. Hopefully.

There you have it: 10 coats on the bookcases, 5 on the mirror, and 3 on the light. Obviously we’re playing a lot of painting catch up for the lack of work we’ve been doing the last several years 🙂