Turquoise tv cabinet makeover

Do you know that paint can make EVERYTHNG better? Even the process of painting cures all evils.

Don't believe me. Well heres a scenario. You wake up in a real pissy mood (we all get those) and snip at everyone who dares look at you. Then - oh I dunno - a well meaning husband says something, and you all of a sudden want to let rip.

Guess what you do. You go outside and let rip with a hammer and some chainy naily things on that piece of furniture you meant to distress last week. You can come back in the house feeling all relaxed and let loose.

"Hey babe are you feeling better?"

"Yes I am thanks honey I love you" (ok that bit may have been made up ;) )

"Ummm, is that a hammer in your hand............?"

See I told you - it fixes everything :) When you are redoing furniture too, it doesn't necessarily have to be older bits and bobs (oooh nearly used the word 'piece' there). When my lovely hubby was working away and had to rent a condo for a couple years there was a whole schwack load of furniture that had to come home when he'd finished. One of which was a TV cabinet - not a bad little Ikea Markor one actually. But seeing as we have our tv on a wall there wasn't really anywhere for it, so it stayed in the enclosed trailer that it was hauled home in. Plus it got a bit bashed up in transit too.

Anyhoo - I was scouting around online looking for inspiration, because there's nothing really about this cabinets that tells you what it thinks it should look like next (if that makes sense). I couldn't really find anything, so I took a trip to town to pick up paint for another project. When I was browsing the paint colour chips (I'm sad like that) I found the MOST amazing colour ever, it looked fab. It was turquoise, so I bought it (it's actually a colour called Wave by Home Hardware up here in Canada - I really like their line of cabinet paints because they dry nicely and level beautifully).

Guess what got a turquoise makeover ....................

The glass doors were prayed with a "glass adhering" spray paint, then primed with a product called Stix (a primer that will allow pretty much any surface to be painted) and then coated with the same paint as the body and a quick stencil sprayed on top. Instead of using the standard lacquer, I actually used (and this was an experiment really) a product called Polyshades by Minwax in the antique walnut colour to age it a little. It's not the easiest thing to use but I love how the effect turned out. Polyshades is a tinted lacquer (basically a stain and varnish in one) and if you use a foam brush and load your brush unevenly then you can drag the brush and get uneven stroke marks of the topcoat. I'm pretty sure it's not meant to be used in this fashion but it gave me the EXACT finish I was looking for. I'm a massive fan of the minwax products too.

Anyway thanks for peeking at this one. I think it's my favourite makeover EVER :)