life and puppies

Antiques, of course! We decided to hit up the antique mall to continue our seemingly never-ending quest to furnish are new, much larger home that has come with much less built-in storage than our previous abode. I’m sure you know this, but a 1929 house does not have nearly the number or size of closets found in a 1985 condo. It’s just a fact of life. And we are meeting it head on by buying all sorts of wooden products to house all of the things we apparently deemed move-worthy. This includes books, of course, but also mason jars filled with lentils, Costco-sized paper towel bundles, Molly’s ever-expanding toy collection and a billion other things. Anyway, on Saturday we bought four things. The first of which I’ll feature here.

Do you know what this is?

According to the antique experts, this is a firewood box. We could use it as that, I suppose, because we do have a wood-burning fireplace, but we thought it would serve us better as a toy chest. We don’t have one and I’ve been really sick of looking at the laundry basket that has served as a de facto one. So, instead of dropping $250 for this one that I love, we bought the firewood box for $75. I didn’t really think the color said “fun and kid-like,” so I walked across the street to Sherwin Williams and bought some paint.

First, I lightly sanded the box and then primed it (AO reminded me to go over it with a wet rag in between these two steps. Oops).

I think white would have looked nice.

Because I’m impatient, I did not wait anything close to the four hours the primer label told me to wait before painting. Instead, I waited maybe 45 minutes and then dove in. Ultimately, it took between two and three coats. I didn’t worry about it being smooth or too much about drips because the undercoat wasn’t smooth and, frankly, the box wasn’t exactly flawless in the first place. I’m really happy with the result.

Ta da!

We have three more pieces to pick up and at least one of them is calling out for my paint brush.