Warren Cupboard White wash

After being more than irritated with my after-Christmas living room, I was inspired a couple weeks ago as I was walking through Home Goods. I LOVE shabby-chic distressed furniture. I coveted pretty much everything in the darn store, but left with just 3 small things that were on clearance and basically free (Thank you Chase rewards)... I will show you those at a later date. Ha!
Today is all about the Warren Cupboard. We call it that because our friend Warren gave it to us for a wedding gift, and Nana called it that once, and it stuck. :) Anyway, it was a very dark brown wood color, and worked great in our last living room. See:

But was not doing it for me in our new space.

See how it just blends in to the background? Not so cute.

I decided, after my Home Goods adventure, that I was going to take the plunge and just paint the darn thing. I got a kit from Micheal's called "Distressed Ivory" by American Accents. Following Papa's instructions, I "roughed it up a bit" then wiped it down and went crazy. I am not really impressed with the paint I got, it was VERY watery. And I mixed people! I mixed! I even kept mixing randomly as I was painting and it FINALLY thickened up a bit, after I finished the first coat. I was kind of worried after coat 1. Here's what it looked like.

Coat 2 did better though- full coverage! Yippee! I let it dry overnight and then after a failed sanding attempt (to "rough it up" some more) I just slapped on the stain, and wiped off with a dry cloth. It took me all of 10 min to do the staining and can I just say, I LOVE IT. It coordinates so much better with the entire living room now! Yay!

I also gave those old barn-wood frames the same treatment and hung them on removable hooks, since I had liked that look so much with the wreathes at Christmastime. :)

My next white-wash project will be our TV stand, but it will have to wait until I can recruit some help getting the darn TV off of it! haha, but stay tuned for a mantle-revamp! :)