Two Matching Bookcases

Ok, I know I say this a lot, but I think these might possibly be my favorites thus far. Or at least until I paint something next. I picked up these beautiful bookcases from a local Goodwill. One of them was broken, but I used some handy dandy wood glue and my brad nailer/compressor to get it back together.

Luckily everything was mostly still in tact. I love all the detail on these, I couldn't wait to get started. I first cleaned them with TSP, hot water and rag. They were pretty dusty, old, full of cobwebs and definitely had the antique smell going on. Here they are after I got them all fixed and cleaned up:

I wanted to use these as my nightstands, so next it was onto find a color that would go with my bedroom. I narrowed it down to these two Behr colors:

Flint Smoke ended up being my final decision. I wanted a light greyish/blue to pick up on the rest of the color in my bedroom. Now, they were ready to paint!

I sprayed these with my HomeRight Finish Sprayer knowing that all the beautiful detail would be very hard and time consuming to hand paint. I mixed up my paint with Plaster of Paris and water to make the good ol' homemade chalk paint recipe and got to spraying. In between coats, I lightly sanded with 220 grit sand paper and then would vacuum the dust off. I then sealed them with General Finishes HPTC in satin. 

I absolutely love them! Without the paint sprayer, I never would have even thought about touching these with a paint brush. If you are on the fence about getting a sprayer because of whatever your reason is, just get one! It is honestly life changing and will save you a ton of time and you will get a perfect finish on whatever you decide to use it on. 

Thanks so much for reading and happy holidays!

-Shayla


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