Try, Try Again!

Whew.

It's done.

And has been done for close to a month, but we have been vacationing, and preparing to vacation, and before that working on the never-ending job that is painting the sunroom.

So without further ado, here is the armoire, no longer crazy kelly green, but soft mint green . . .

Ah. I love it. And of course, I am far from a  photography pro, so the color is unfortunately less than perfect in this photo. It's a little bit stronger mint in person, and less washed out. But I'll take what I can get, considering the youngest child that was playing monkey on me while I tried to take pictures.

Benjamin Moore's Reflection is what I ended up using on the armoire . . . no test samples, nothing but a look at a kitchen I adore, and I went for it! Fortunately, I love it, so the $12 was well spent this time.

Remember the before? Before for both the armoire and dining room wall color, if you look closely.

And then the in-between . . . three coats that took FOREVER to paint and only a moment to decide I absolutely hated it.

I purchased new brass hinges to use, but then thought I would attempt to get the original armoire hinges cleaned up first. Which really was the lazy option, as I didn't feel like filling holes and making new ones. As luck would have it, an 8 hour simmer with a little dish detergent mixed with water did the trick. The paint peeled right off and left me with nice brass hinges that worked perfectly with the owl knobs.

The owl knobs are from World Market, and I had previously used them in our old kitchen on our pantry bifold doors. Love the owls! Sophia insisted we bring them to the new house, and now they have a perfect new home.

What to use with the owls? Little dangly pulls from Hobby Lobby, about $2 each with their 50% off knobs sale.

Now for the not-so-pretty but very functional bit.  The armoire functions exactly as I intended, as craft / homeschooling / library book / kids game storage. Plus I also put their cd player on the top shelf (to be lowered as soon as I rev up the energy to drill new holes for the shelf supports), so everything that was previously stored in 2 1/2 other pieces of furniture has merged into this one.

I LOVE having less furniture cluttering up the room, and especially being able to shut the door and not see any of the mess.

One more time, the after that I get to see every time I walk into the dining room or living room . . .