Armoire Project

I have had this cedar armoire since I moved into my first apartment. Before that, it was in my parent's garage. Before that, it was inside my grandmother's neighbor's house. My dad and I are guessing it's at least 50 years old. When I got my first apartment, I made it into an entertainment center. I put birch plywood in the inside to make a shelf for the TV and another shelf under that for components. For the last few years, it has stood in our spare room holding everything imaginable.
Since we are going to finish our bonus room soon, we are finally going to have a guest bedroom upstairs. So I figured I would refinish the armoire for the guest room.
I wanted an old, aged look. I was at Lowe's last weekend and went over to the mis-tinted paint shelf. There was a quart of off white paint sitting on the shelf for $2.50. Cha-ching! I asked the people at the paint desk if they would add color to it to make it a little bit darker for me and they did. Even better! I also got a gallon of Valspar paint that retails for $35, for $5. It's a beautiful gold color but it's for another day.


We had brown paint at home from the wall we just painted. So we started by painting the armoire brown. Then we painted it off white. We then sanded the entire thing in different spots to make it appear aged and distressed. It looked great!




I stopped at Lowe's on my way home from work Tuesday and got a small jug of this Valspar glaze. I put the glaze on over one side of the armoire and wiped it off. It didn't look good at all. Plus, I was working on this project in our attic where it was extremely hot. After all, it is 100 degrees outside here in Memphis right now. The glaze dried way too quickly. So I repainted the side that I put the glaze on and last night, I sanded it down again. Then I had a great idea....Stain! I put stain over the entire thing and quickly wiped it off. It looks amazing!


It's not photographing very well but I have pictures of everything. I can't wait to have a guest room!!