Linen and Twigs

Hey Friends! I hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. We are half way through our week and heading for the weekend. It seems to be going by so fast. Did you get to see the eclipse? I thought that was pretty cool. It’s pretty awesome to see something that doesn’t happen on a regular basis.

Lately, I have been craving change. Nothing too big or too crazy…just a little change. Or…maybe a big change. I’m not too sure, just change. Have you ever felt that way? It’s not that what surrounds you isn’t good, it’s just that you want a little difference in your life. Something to shake it up a bit.

The best way I have found to change things up beside redecorating a room is to simply paint something. Whether it is a wall, a whole room or just a piece of furniture, paint can do wonders at transforming a look. See an earlier post for more ideas. Now I know that some people would gasp at the thought of painting a pretty piece of furniture and let me tell you, sometimes I do too. However, if it gives you the look that makes you happy, well, it’s just paint. Paint can transform something from “alright” to “amazing” in no time. It is also very forgiving. If you don’t like the outcome or want a different look later, just pull out your brush. It’s also probably the cheapest way to transform the look of a room as well.

I had spent years looking for a cabinet for my kitchen to display my collection of white dishes. Not only did I want it to have a certain look but to also be fully functioning since we use these dishes everyday. I had a certain look in mind. I wanted something that looked like it was somewhat built-in and had a lot of glass doors. I wanted it to cover an entire wall and I wanted it to be affordable. Those credentials don’t sound too hard to find, right?

I had found several cabinets at antique stores that were absolutely gorgeous! They had a lot of what I was looking for however most of them were about ten feet tall, which was too tall for my nine foot ceilings. They were too wide to fit on my wall or they were far too expensive to fit in my budget. Persistence pays off in the end.

So one day while I was hitting up an estate sale, I found this beautiful cabinet. The owners were retiring and moving to the beach and couldn’t take the cabinet with them because….and then I couldn’t hear the rest of their story because I swear I could hear angels sing. It was “the” cabinet I had been searching for!!! (Or at least it had the good bones that I had been searching for.) It wasn’t too tall. It had plenty of storage and it fit in my budget! Score!!!

So I rallied up my guys and they helped me get this beauty home. Now here’s a funny side note about this story. At the time I had just started painting my kitchen (for the umpteenth time). I told myself that I couldn’t bring my treasure into the house until I finished painting. My beautiful cabinet was waiting in the garage and I became a painting fool. We actually had a tornado warning on the t.v. and I’m yelling at the television to “Wait! I’m not done painting yet!” As if it’s better to get your house blown away “after” it looks pretty. The tornado passed (thank goodness) and the painting got done so my guys hauled my beautiful cabinet into the kitchen.

I was in love…at least for a while. I’m not the kind of person who rushes into painting a piece of furniture especially if it is made of nice wood however after living with the cabinet for a while, it just seemed like a dark hole in our kitchen. I loved the contrast of the wood against the white dishes but it seemed very heavy…so out came the paint brushes.

I emptied all of my dishes out of the cabinet…

And began the painting process.

I gave the cabinet a coat of primer and paint and I’m not going to lie…even I was hoping that I wasn’t screwing up. The more I thought about it though, I realized that I wasn’t happy with the way it was…and it’s just paint after all. If I didn’t like it, I would simply redo it or strip it. Then I gave it a second coat of paint and scraped the windows. It’s amazing how my kitchen just opened up. Although the cabinet was the style that I loved, the color was all wrong. It closed in the room. After some light distressing and filling it up with my dishes, the look was complete.

I don’t regret doing it one bit now. It changed the whole look of the room.  It has that southern farmhouse charm that I was looking for. And did I mention..it was just paint!!!

Have you used paint to transform the look of something? Were you pleased with the results? Send some inspiration my way. I would love to hear about it.