{Before & After} Meet James – Fall Inspired Side Table

Remember this cute little side table/ cabinet I said with you last week? I was debating on what color to paint him because I wanted to do something inspired by fall, but I have a difficult time with the color orange and I tend to be drawn towards white and grey. Well I think I found a solution that worked out beautifully!

I originally painted the whole thing with Sherwin Williams “Carnival” which is a bright orange color. I had already stripped and stained the top, so I was looking for something that went well with the new color.

But once I had painted the entire thing, I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe it was just too much orange for me – but somewhere around my second coat of orange I came up with the idea to use one of my favorite colors “Navajo” by Benin Moore over the orange to create a beautiful layered look.

I tried it out on a small section and oh was I a happy girl. I love the way the colors work together. It still has a really gorgeous rustic, fall feeling, but in a much more “wearable” way.

Of course I mixed in VS Chalky Paint Powder with both colors and in addition to the new coat of paint, I also used Vintage Storehouse Antiquing Powder in Roasted Chestnut to give it a beautiful aged & worn paint look. It also made all the details pop!

To create the layered look, I just painted the “Navajo” color all over the “Carnival” color until it was opaque. I think I ended up doing two coats of each color. Then I used a 320 grit sandpaper to sand through in some areas to the orange. I used a brush when I was applying the paint, and I wasn’t too focused on smoothing out the brush strokes, this made a really cool effect when I went to sand it because some of the ridges from the brush strokes started to peek through!

I also didn’t fix any veneer, I wanted this set to look old and to tell a story. How can it do that if I make it look brand new?

I switched out the hardware as well, mostly because I just wasn’t a fan of the small hardware that was on there before. I got this new pull from Hobby Lobby.

Materials Used:

• Behr Ultra Premium Paint mixed with Vintage Storehouse Chalky Paint Powder in the color “Navajo” by Benjamin Moore & “Carnival” by Sherwin Williams
• Fiddes Supreme Wax in Clear
• Vintage Storehouse Antiquing Powder in Roasted Chestnut
• Dusting Brush
• Disposable Microfiber Cloths

[Signature Snippet]

[Link Party Snippet]