Paint Fail

Sometimes it is hard to find good advice in a small town.  Especially when there is no specialty shop in the area for what you are doing.  So I did the next best thing.  I looked up what to do on the internet.  I found a site that told me exactly how to do what I wanted to do.  Then I went to my local home improvement store to get the materials that I needed.  The woman that was helping me asked me what I was working on, I told her, and then made the mistake of listening to her advice.

I had an old CD storage stand that I was turning into a spice rack.  I currently keep my spices in a terrible place (above my stove) where they go bad so quickly.  My new spice rack would look so nice next to my counter and save my spices.  The only thing I had to do was paint it white to match my counters.

I knew from my research that in order to paint something made out of particle board, without having to sand it, you should always use an oil based paint.  Armed with this knowledge, I went into the paint section and asked for an oil based white paint with a satin finish.  After talking to the woman for a bit, she told me to use this other water based paint instead.  I figured she worked in the paint department for a living, she had to know her stuff.  I should have been stubborn and stuck to my original plan.

The piece looked lovely when it was done.  Until I tried to put the shelves back on.

This happened.

I let it dry for a week.  I even put on this fancy top coat.  I was so upset.

I know it is possible to paint partical board without having to sand it.  After all, I painted my white bookshelves black over eight years ago and they still look okay.

And this thing takes a pounding!

So now I am waiting on borrowing an electric sander so I can do this project the right way.  

On a little side note, you can now expect this blog to be updated every Saturday.  Hooray!