Project Two! Transforming an Ikea Shelf

It's been a busy summer so far, but I've finally finished up my second project! I scored a shelf for free off Craigslist. Pretty plain, simple, Ikea shelf. I wanted to paint it to match the look of my wine cabinet (picture pending). The idea is to have an antiqued look, with black glaze over a base coat of paint.

Original color of shelf

I originally wanted to paint it white, since I thought I had white paint laying around and I'm kinda going for this beachy, Hamptons, vintage, cottage by the beach look (think Emily Thorne from Revenge). Turns out I didn't have white paint. Being lazy--I mean innovative and quick on my feet!--I went through the various cans of paint I already had. I found some aluminum metallic spray paint and decided to see how that would look with the wood shelf. I'm kinda diggin' the metallic look!

So step 1 is to paint all the parts of the shelf. Once the base coat of paint has dried, I sanded the shelves a bit. I wanted to create little grooves where the glaze can stick into.












After that, I painted the black glaze all over the shelves.

Let the glaze dry a bit, maybe a minute tops. Then I took a rag and *lightly* wiped away some of the glaze, until it had the look I wanted. Repeat as needed, depending on how dark you want the glaze to be.

The great thing about this project is that it doesn't need to be perfect! You can just tell people it's all part of that weathered, beat up look.

Overall, it's a pretty simple project, but it can get super messy. I'm loving how the shelf looks with the white couch. Still debating on decorations, not sure if I want to keep those blue pillows...but that is another post!