While the cats away, the mice will play!!

Tyler and I have been married for almost nine years now. Amazing. But one thing about us: we are a together kinda couple. We are always together. He may work long hours, but he always comes home at the end of the day. He never travels for work, and we never vacation separately :) WELL, he actually left me this week for FIVE DAYS (and it was for work . . . kind of)!!! Can you imagine? I couldn't. So, all I did was find a project!!! Woo hoo for projects!!!

My amazing friend, Kelli, has a DIY blog called The Turquoise Piano and she is an amazing girl!! She once called me 'that type of person' or something along those lines, but really, if you want to stereotype someone, she comes as an easy target. I shall expound so you don't think I'm being rude. She is GORGEOUS! Blond, blue eyed, nicer than most people you meet (which really stinks because by looks, you'd like to hate her), and I think she only weighs in around 46 1/2 pounds, and she's good at absolutely everything she does. Did I mention she broke her back as a teen and just recently completed an iron man or something ridiculous like that. She super awesome! Anyhoo, I love her, and I love her blog. So I was able to attain a good amount of support by all of her many many projects in which she had no clue what she was doing and then completes them . . . and they turn out really well. Off we go.

One other thing I need to tell you, I practically suffocate at our house on toys. We have too many toys. Any of you out there in blogger land have that problem? Ha ha . . . if you even have one child, you have this problem. So, I needed another place to put toys. Something in the family room that the toys can be invisible in. I knew I wanted a cabinet to stick in the corner. Enter KSL.com :)



I found this little beauty on KSL. They were asking seventy bucks. I offered forty. We settled on fifty. I could see the massive potential!!



Okay, so I brought the thing home, took off all the hardware (doors, hinges, drawer) and began sanding. Here's something I didn't know. When people say 'sand' something, they could mean that very loosely. They (whoever 'they' are) could probably mean something more like 'rough up' so the primer or paint will stick. Sanding sucks. It's horrible and time consuming. This is how far I got after an hour. I called Kelli bummed and ready to be done. I had ONE day to finish this so it could sit and get paint fumes off before I took it in the house and set up before Tyler's arrival home. I did NOT have a week to sand this whole thing off. She set me straight. You rough it up, which would take maybe one and a half sheets of sand paper, not the FIVE I went through for half of the top and maybe 20 minutes. So I roughed up the rest (notice, I didn't NOT say sanded) and called it good.



This color looks black, but it's actually dark walnut. Just thought you'd like to know. And I actually painted this whole thing with spray paint (seriously, all five layers). Not something I would do again. 'Why not' you ask? Because my forearm is still sore. And, the worst part for me, it's really really hard to control drips when the can is almost empty because of it's spraying inconsistency. So there's that.



Also, if you were doing this, I would take off your wedding ring or wear gloves. I now get to make a trip to the jeweler to have my ring cleaned. I've been assured over and over that they can remove this paint from my ring. I have high hopes.



So you LOVE this color?!?! This awesome color is called Paprika and it's by Rustoleum. It really is the color of the spice! Awesome! I kind of love love it (yep, I said love twice!! That's just how I feel).



And I left the inside, the back of the cabinet door, and the inside of the drawer the dark walnut color. I just like it like that! After that I slightly distressed it. I forgot to take a picture, but on the drawer and a couple of spots of the doors the paint fish-eyed. I didn't care because I knew that I was going to distress it, but that would have made me completely furious if I was going for a more modern look. Fish-eyeing is when a contaminant gets on a substance that repels paint. I happened to be talking to my brother who works with paint all the time. A garage isn't exactly a clean space :) Whatever. Then I went ahead and stained it with, what else?, a dark walnut stain!! I instantly liked what I saw.

SO . . . . drum roll please . . .



TAH DAH!!!!!!



I am completely amazed with how much I love it. Seriously. Oh, and just so we're clear, I bought new knobs. The other ones were hideous. But I adore the little hinges, so they totally stayed and I didn't do anything to those other than wipe off the dust :)

Honestly, not to toot my own horn, but BEEP BA BEEP BEEP BEEP!!! I'm so excited about this that I just may do something else. Who doesn't need a reddish orange cabinet in the corner of their living room?!?! If you need help . . . well, I suppose you can call me, but I would recommend calling someone that knows what they are doing. I just guessed and pretended to be confident about it :)

WOO HOO!!!