Little Things

My kitchen. I spend a good portion of my time daydreaming about renovating it and trying to figure out a way to do it in two stages to make it fit my budget better.

Until that faraway day gets here, I find myself making small changes to keep me happy, like painting this formerly pine shelf white. I may have mentioned before that I hate painting furniture, which is really a shame since I have approximately 74 more pieces of furniture that need to be painted.

This time I decided to use Annie Sloan chalk paint because of all the no prep/one coat hype. Well, I have to tell you folks, I'm not even a little impressed. $40 for a quart and I found that a little did not go a long way, despite what I had read. It also did not cover in one coat. On the plus side, yay for no sanding!

I guess maybe if you are heavily distressing your piece then it's fine but if you want a clean coat of paint like I did for this shelf, then you might want to pass. Unless, like me, you'd like to have the worlds most expensive primer coat which is what I ended up with.

Even though I accidentally used my trim paint for the second coat due to an ill fated paint can lid incident, (did I mention I hate painting furniture?), it's done and I couldn't be happier! Now when I'm in the kitchen feeling fussy about waiting for a renovation, I can stare at my happy-place shelf and maybe it will help me be more patient. Although, probably not.

In other kitchen news, after every appliance company we called refused to come out and repair a commercial range in a residential home, my oven is now working thanks to my super hero hubby. He managed to fix it himself with nothing but a $20 part and his big brain. This from the guy who couldn't center pictures on the wall when we first got married! I'm amazed at how far he's come. It was a long bake-less week but I am now back in business and feeling confident in the knowledge that I married well. I mean, look at this picture. The pose, the undershirt. But he had me at bow tie.