Never Stop Improving

... yeah I totally love Lowes' slogan... in fact, not just for home improvements but for self improvements as well (that's for another blog post soon!) I'm fairly certain though, that all the sales associates at Lowes know my husband and I fairly well... no, I'm POSITIVE that they know us well by now. There's something about owning a house, that has you constantly doing projects. Yes, we're living in a new build and we don't have "fix up" stuff, but there have been TONS that we've been wanting to build, re-create, etc.... that we've waited 7 years to do, because we lived overseas for so long... with no Lowes, and no space to do those projects.

One of those projects, is our old "pie safe"... a find from when we lived in Florida. It's definitely seen quite a bit of moves, and has been used for multiple purposes. In Korea, I was getting sick of it's look, and so I knew as soon as we moved, that it would be getting a new look for the new house... and a new purpose.

Up until this point, it's been in or near our kitchen. It's held cookbooks, baking supplies, dry goods (when we didn't have a lot of cabinet space in Korea), etc. Not only did that color need to go, but the tin needed out as well... too country for my tastebuds.  So... to work I went. I decided first, that I wanted it to go in our guest room... and then decided on a color... I know... you're all thinking I went bold, but I didn't.

I used "steel" from Valspar's line... and made sure to get an "inside satin" finish... the best part about Valspar paint (and this is solely my opinion, they haven't paid me to highlight/advertise for them) is that they market their paint, to not only be the color, but a primer as well... So, I didn't even have to prime this cabinet! BONUS! I saved time and money in the end... and my pregnancy energy (which is priceless these days).

I decided to ditch the doors... and keep it as an open cabinet/book case... and had the hubby replace the tin sides, with just a really thin plywood... He cut out squares, and nailed them in for me (closer to the end- that step wasn't photographed). One thing I did do, was sand all the rough edges, just to give it a cleaner finish. 

And then I painted away... I was a little hesitant at this point, about the color... but I waited for it to dry... and then I was sold on it. I only needed 1 coat... and did a little touch up work here and there... but I'm super happy with how it turned out. A heads up for you regarding paint color: the color always looks lighter than how dark it dries. See how crazy light it looks in the above photos? It almost has a blue tint to it as well... well, it didn't dry that way. It definitely darkened up, and turned into the perfect shade for the finished product that I was striving for. 

The next best part... is getting that piece into the room, and seeing how it works. If it didn't work in this room, my back up was to put it in the nursery. But, it looks PERFECT in the guest room... and I added treasures that we've collected from our worldwide journey. Seriously, that bottom bread bowl, is from an antique shop in Greece, on the island of Mikonos. We were on a cruise, and found that shop while the hubby and I were sightseeing the island on a moped. We purchased it, not knowing if it would fit in our luggage... but it did, surprisingly. It's filled with conk shells from our time in Florida, and other fun goodies from Germany, and Korea (the aqua tin). I just have one picture that I want to add to that white frame... but I've decided to wait until we meet our sweet little girl, to get an updated "road" picture (like the one we have framed in the photo below). 

I love giving new life to furniture... I'm pretty surprised with myself, that I didn't paint it yellow or turquoise... but I wanted to create a warm and breezy feel for our guests. Some people are scared of color (hopefully not my visitors), so I didn't want to go too bold with this large piece... and rather tried to bring in color with the accent pieces.