TV Stand Update with Chalk Paint®

As you may recall, earlier this summer I made over my outdoor table with Chalk Paint® decorative paint by Annie Sloan. Well it just so happens that I had quite a bit of paint leftover from that job. And leftover paint = more projects! This time I decided to tackle my TV Stand.

Now you might be saying, "That is a sweet Ikea Hemnes TV stand Casey, why ever would you want to paint it?". Well, besides being white and boring, the TV stand top was actually looking a little worse for wear. There were cracks in the paint and strange stains that wouldn't come out. Actually if I had the patience I would replace the entire top with a nice stained wood, but there is just no way I am ever taking apart this TV stand as it took me 4 hours to put together. So paint it was!!

I sanded down and spackled parts of the top that were not smooth from paint chipping, and then I got down to work. First tried to decide what shade of turquoise I wanted it. I didn't want it as bright as the outdoor table, so I toned it down by mixing my Provence paint colour with a sample pot of Old White to create a kind of seafoam green.

Here is a tip: I wanted to make sure I knew the proportions of white to turquoise so that I could make another batch if I didn't have enough, but I didn't want to use my food measuring cups- so I weighed the paint as I went. Worked pretty well!! Except when the scale would shut off mid-way (grr). I think I ended up with a 1:2 ratio. But it could have been 1:1. I should have written it down. Sorry.

I started off light and kept adding turquoise until I liked the shade. I did a little test swatch on the front of the stand as I went.

Once I was happy with my colour I went along painting the whole top of the table and the edges. I decided to leave the base white. Now, I will say that I had a little bit of trouble with painting. I am not sure if it was the fact that I used a foam roller (though I used one on the outdoor table without issue), or if I didn't allow enough drying time between coats, but all of a sudden my first coat was pulling up with the roller in one corner, making the paint look all uneven. I let it all dry and then sanded a bit and patched up that corner with paint, but you can still tell if you look closely :\

I let it dry overnight and then I added a layer of Annie Sloan Soft Wax by rubbing it in well with a dry cloth. I then let the wax dry 24 hours before buffing. I wasn't totally impressed when I was done so I waxed some more and then buffed again the next night. It did add some sheen, but I find it a little uneven. I think if I had had the proper waxing tool, a better cloth for buffing and more practice I might have done better! However, you can really only see the spots when you are up close.

I then let the table cure for two whole weeks! Thankfully I was away for one of those weeks so it wasn't so hard. My TV is pretty ghetto and heavy so I wanted the wax to cure as hard as possible before I put it back up there. When I really started to miss TV, I just set it up to watch DVDs on the couch :)

When I got back from vacation I set everything back up!

I really like how the colour turned out. I think it fits in well with the ottoman that is only a few feet away. My living room is only 9.5 ft wide so you really have to make sure your large items coordinate well!

Overall, I found this project oddly more frustrating than I would have expected, but I do like how it came out and I am very happy with this change up!

PS- I really need to figure out how to stage a TV stand. Although, according the images I searched on Pinterest the solution is to get a bigger TV so there is no room on the top for decorative pieces. Cam's suggestion was to get more dinosaurs (that is what the little red and blue thing are in from of the TV)

You might have also noticed that I recovered the green "basket" in the stand. This basket is my junk drawer, and while the green one is the perfect size, I was sick of the green so I stapled on some pretty new fabric and added a few nail heads to jazz it up!

I want to note- I shot the after photos with a camera I recently borrowed from my dad- a Nikon D800! I feel it did a way better job capturing the colours true-to-life than my before shots, which were on a D300s (also dads- he has a photography hobby and I get to profit from that ;)). Or it could have been the lighting or editing. But I do want to keep playing around with this camera because I have never been able to so accurately depict the colour of the floors and walls in here. Might be time for another condo tour!

Disclaimer: The paint and wax  for this project was provided by Annie Sloan Unfolded. All opinions are my own.

Linked up on: My Repurposed Life