Wow, yesterday was an exciting day around here! Our kitchen was featured on Apartment Therapy which sent the traffic here on our blog sky-rocketing. I admit to being a bit nervous about it since AT readers can be a tough crowd, but the comments were all extremely positive and gracious. It was fun to get all of that positive affirmation on a project we worked really hard on! I shared all the comments with dad and Tom also, and we were all floating a bit high on life. Thank you!

Now I think every other person in the world owns one of these Bekvam step stools from IKEA (peaking around the corner, above right). They come unfinished and look pretty hot naked, if I do say so myself. However, after getting heavy use during our various remodels, ours was looking a little hammered and was wearing a coat of shoe grease and paint splatters. Since we use it often in the kitchen I decided to give it a little makeover so it would blend into the decor.

I picked a swatch of the shelf and bought a quart of paint: Behr Donegal Tweed. Great name, great color. When I got it home I was thrilled with how well it picked up the yellow in my curtains. I bought a flat finish that would have looked great as is, but for some reason I had pictured it more as a wash, so I watered it down and painted a very thin coat over the stool, then finished it off with a few coats of Poly-Acrylic finish. I think now I would have liked the flat finish of a solid coat of paint better, but I think this finish will wear better.

I then used a scrap of oak from a previous project and had Dad cut me a little shelf for my hallway. I used the same paint wash treatment and hung it up with some maps I'd once had mounted and laminated.

It makes the perfect ledge for my London and New York wooden cities in a bag (from Muji)!

It has taken me a long time to get things put up on the walls in this house (they all needed to be painted first!) but sometimes it is these finishing touches that are the most fun.

Now for this awesome Donegal Tweed color. I need to find something else to slather it on. Quick!