Robin’s Egg Blue Painted Cabinet

Robin’s egg blue is all the rage right now and I am it’s latest victim.

This is a Craigslist find – redo. The large (90″) cabinet is in our foyer.

I had been looking on Craigslist for about 6 months for a large cabinet/ buffet to fill this space. One of the drawbacks of small town life – Craigslist here SUCKS! The same stuff that was listed in September is still there. There might be 2 or three additions per day, unlike Atlanta when there were two or three hundred. Anyway, I guess I wasn’t meant to find my treasure until the time was right.

This is what it looked like when we brought it home, in all it’s 1980′s glory. Fortunately, it is a very solid, well made piece. It is a very heavy oak.

There were some scrapes and scratches here and there, but I knew I would be covering them up; so no worries.

The first thing I did was remove the hardware, doors, and drawers. Then I sanded the entire piece. I did the flat surfaces with an electric palm sander and the nooks and crannies by hand.

After it was sanded I vacuumed it and wiped it all down with a tack cloth to remove the dust.

Then I painted the whole shootin’ match with oil based Kilz. I just used the oil based version because I already had a can of it. I ended up doing two coats of the Kilz. The buffet had some really substantial grain markings.

In the spirit of full disclosure…my first go ’round at color was a bust. I went with a Sherwin Williams color called Halcyon Green. It looked a little like bad baby poop to me so I opted for a complete do over. Luckily Lowe’s is only about a mile from my house. So off I went.

I ended up getting a quart of their Olympic paint in Alpine Valley with an eggshell finish.

When it first went on it was VERY vibrant. Yikes! Undeterred, I forged onward and painted it all. I only ended up needing one coat.

After the coat of paint was dry I aged the entire piece with Minwax stain in Early American. I slathered it on pretty heavily with a sponge pad, waited about 10 minutes, then wiped it down with cotton rags.

This is what it looks like all slathered up, before the wipe down.

I really like how the stain settled into the nooks and crannies. Though it’s nearly impossible to see the true finish from these pictures, trust me it’s aged perfectly. Once the stain was thoroughly dry I did one coat of satin poly on the top (horizontal) surface.

Next up, I replaced the hardware and put it all back together. I ended up reusing the original hardware. It is an antiqued brass.

This is what the foyer wall looked like before this blue behemoth. I know you’ll agree with me that this little chest of drawers was just way too small.