Those are 2 year old footprints..
..through oil based primer..
..on freshly painted boards..
..and onto my garage floor.
Sigh.
But more about that later. Onto the project at hand!
Since I am not able to bite off any new projects this month due to my complete lack of funds I decided I would tackle the projects that have been sitting around untouched. Most of them are untouched because they aren't very exciting and they are parts of rooms that I haven't started redoing yet.
For example, the first project is a large shelving unit that will house all my crafting supplies in my sewing room. The sewing room has never been touched. Here is what it looks like currently (plus a whole lot of junk is being stored in there right now):
For starters it needs to be repainted, it needs a new light, to have some (shocker) oak cabinets painted and to have a set of doors installed to close it off from the master bedroom. None of this has been done.
You can see it already has some great storage and a built in work desk, but it still isn't enough room to store everything I need for my sewing and crafting.
But a shelving unit is putting the cart before the horse since the room isn't ready to house anything just quite yet.
However... my sister recently moved out of the country and left me with this beast which I knew would be perfect to house all my goodies:
Don't recognize it? Well if it was assembled it would look like this (only in that awful cheap WalMart laminate oak color):
My plan was to paint it the same color that I am going to paint the cabinets, Martha Stewart Glass of Milk (the color I previously used on the cabinets in my laundry room) and add it to the blank wall opposite of the built ins.
Of course, when painting cheap veneered MDF furniture there are some tricks. #1 and MOST IMPORTANT: OIL BASED PRIMER! If you use a latex primer the grain of the wood will swell and the veneer will come lose.
So that is what I did. 1 coat of oil-based Kilz.
I used a high nap roller for the primer and it worked great. No brush strokes and great coverage.
Now this is where it gets ugly. As I am finishing priming the last (of 28!!) parts to this bookcase I hear J call out "Look Mommy! Foo-prints!" and I know immediately I'm in trouble.
Apparently she thought the small boards were hopscotch squares and felt the need to step on them.. ALL OF THEM.
She then jumped off the boards and onto the floor where her little Robeez left permanent (albeit cute) footprints both on my garage floor and driveway.
I guess this will be a project I won't ever forget, since there will be a constant reminder every time I step out of the car.
Undeterred I touched up the primer and added two coats of latex paint (unlike the primer coat, any additional coats of paint on MDF can be water based as long as your first layer is solvent based):
The giant shelving unit now lies in my garage in pieces. It is calling out to be assembled but it will have to wait until next month when I once again can buy paint.
Cost for this project:
Ikea Expedit Shelving Unit: Free ($229 retail)
Oil-Based Killz: Free (laundry room project)
Martha Stewart Glass of Milk Latex Paint: Free (laundry room project)
Total cost: ZILTCH!
Can't wait to see finished project!
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