We’ve painted our share of paint displays over the past few years to accommodate the growing demand for the paints we carry in our three West Michigan locations.

One of my favorites was re-purposed out of an antique Victrola Cabinet.  I had never seen one like this before but it sure is cool.  All I had to do was remove the doors and build shelving to create a pretty unique display case.

Fireworks Red over Wild Horses with Clear & Dark Wax

Can you see the difference on the bottom?  The left has been waxed, the right is  raw paint.

I loved the wood finish on this piece and felt it would look beautiful refinished so I stained it with a deep espresso stain.  This looked absolutely beautiful until I got sidetracked and forgot to wipe off the excess stain.  OOPS!!  Everything dried to a sticky mess so I had to clean it all off and start over again.  This time, I thought I better stick to what I know best ~ paint!  I chose of one of my all time favorites ~ APC’s Firework’s Red!

 

This red is gorgeous in and of itself, but for this particular display, I wanted more of a vintage feel, so I sealed it with a combination of both Clear and Dark Antiquing Wax.  I sealed the majority of it with the clear and just worked the dark in the detailed areas and corners…

I love the richness of the color and how silky smooth the waxed finish feels.  That’s a big one with me.  There’s a lot of painted furniture out there but a lot of it doesn’t FEEL nice.

 

While I was busy painting the display for our APC quarts, my sister Cathy went to town on the sample display using a combination of APC’s Shining Seas and dry-brushed on a little Blue Jeans for subtle highlights.

She also re-purposed a pallet our paint comes in on to make a cool sign.  After Cath finished designing the flag, she painted over everything with a wash of  Tumbleweed to give it a vintage flag appearance.

That display was a piece of cake, then came the Big Kahuna!

We wanted one large display case to hold everything for our Not So Shabby location so we went hunting and found a perfect China Cabinet.  First step was a major de-greasing because on the drive over to check it out, the owner went out of his way to shine it all up with Armor All!  Thank you sir… but you REALLY  REALLY didn’t have to do that ;).

I based everything in one of my favorite combinations by mixing a dark brown and slate gray.   It’s not a rocket science, stop in our give us a call if you’re unsure on colors.

This was a 50/50 mix of Wild Horses & Freedom Road

Updated Suggestion because Wild Horse has since been retired ~ To recreate this color today, I’d either use APC’s Espresso or Old Town’s Deep Chocolate for the brown portion.  We Still have Freedom Road but Lady Grey from Frenchic would be a fabulous gray to use as well.  

When I applied the paint, I slapped it on in all sorts of different directions to create texture and grab the paint later on down the road.  This was a while ago, but knowing me, I applied two thin coats of this color to build upon.

Now back to the additional space requirement… Since we don’t have the luxury of a hunky carpenter in our workshop, we had to use our imagination and asked ourselves…

What would Carter do?

We love Carter, unfortunately he’s not tucked away in our garage so we had to take our own measurements then off to Home Depot to beef up our display.  Cathy took the bull by the horns for this part.  She’s a measure twice, cut once kind of gal ~ unlike myself who gets sidetracked a thousand times a day as my husband quickly gets my attention by yelling  “Hey squirrel!”

We super-sized the china cabinet by adding 2 x 8’s between the top and bottom halves.  They aren’t truly 8” but they were just wide enough to allow for the bottles which is all we needed.  Then all we had to do is add a new bottom to the top of the cabinet and the painting could begin.

Before I shot this picture, I had started painting it in Navajo White but when I stuck a can inside to see how it looked in it’s new outfit, it was B O R I N G !!!

I did what any other painter would do, chose a different color which ended up being a wash of Smoke Signal, again in a “any which way” manner to build more interest to the finish.

APC’s Smoke Signal Wash over Base Coat of Wild Horses/Freedom Road

Ahh, much better!  I wet distressed everything but still couldn’t leave it alone ~ that would be too easy!  I tend to torture myself and take everything one step farther than necessary.  This time, I created a second watered-down wash using APC’s Dessert Cactus.  This color has since been retired but it was a khaki-gold/green color.

I added this randomly to both the light and dark areas creating more interest and variation in color and texture.

I sealed the lighter areas in Clear Wax and used APC’s Dark Wax over the Darker sections.  Here’s a close up of the finish.

This paint display piece is located our Shizzle Design booth within Not So Shabby Antiques and Fine Furniture in Holland, MI.

Stop in and check it out!

For more ideas, tips, video tutorials, pictures and inspiration on what we have created using chalk and clay paints, visit the Shizzle Design Portfolio.

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Did you know…

• It’s just the two of us:  My sister and I own and operate Shizzle Design which originated in my garage.  We have and will continue to work hard providing the best customer service.
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