Stripes, please

I'll take stripes, please!  I get tired of painting the same ol' one colored chair, dresser, end table and walls.  So, I decided whatthaheck, why not?  Why not add stripes to a nice un-finished wood table we have had for years (Jer got me a 50 gallon fish tank about 7 years ago during college for either an anniversary or birthday and a sturdy natural wood table to set it on) which had been sitting in our study holding up Jer's printer.  We switched that out with another recent make-over (coming soon) and brought it up to our living room area.

Here she is ready for some paint.  (See the blue curtains behind her?  Those are our new addition to our back patio.  I sewed curtains for the whole patio!  Let me tell ya, they are a cool-air-saver-for-our-living-room.  Man do they keep our house cool.  In the evening, the sun sets on our back patio and heats up our living room, but not anymore.  I'll post all the goods about this project later).

 These are the materials/utensils I used, minus the paints.  That's it.  Easy and simple.

For furniture, I normally prime and paint with canned (not spray) paint.  BUT, this time I did things a little different.  I applied my first coat with Antique white canned paint which took FOREVER because there are a lot of nooks and cranny's on this little table, and I sweat my booty off (well not really, but I wish).  So for the second coat I thought spray painting would be quicker...and it was.  So I sprayed Heirloom White (two spray cans I already had on hand) and then went back to the "canned" paint for the 3rd and final coat (Jer thought I was nuts).  I've never done that and don't even know if your supposed to mix paint types.  But it worked.  After about 2 hours (thank you B for taking a long nap)...here she blows...pearly white...I mean, pearly antique white. 

She's a beauty.  There's something about white that puts a big smile on my face.  It's clean and fresh and livens up a room.  Something we are slowly trying to do to our living room.  We want a clean feeling...right now it feels to dungeon-y. 

Enter: stripes.  Using my beloved green frog's painters tape.  ***I highly recommend this tape when you are painting, you will get no leak-through.***  I spaced them out evenly according to the width of the tape itself.  I went to Home Depot and got a sample of Behr's Cool Sky blue.  Even though the samples have a flat finish, it still worked out perfectly with the semi-gloss white paint. 

Then I painted everything in between.  Once I painted a stripe, I quickly peeled off the tape.  Over time, we've learned to never let your paint dry before peeling the tape off.  It'll end up peeling off the paint. 

Here's she is with her new accessories...Stripes! Once it was dry, I used my 3M sanding block and sanded the corners and other areas to make it look more "worn and antique-ish." 

She's in her new home and all filled up with little nic-nac's. 

And her new home is sittin' under B's picutre.  Imagine the walls being a gray/beige and NOT yellow.  I'm hoping to convince Jer into painting our walls again after we get back from our trip.  I want them to be more light and airy and bright and clean and fresh...well you get the point. 

The pictures don't do her justice.  She's a really good lookin' girl in person.  Every time we walk in the door and into our living room and kitchen we get to see her and her fresh self.  She's cool..."cool sky" blue that is.

Happy One More Day Until Friday!
~Jeni