Our home in Florida lacked architectural interest. Every fourth house in the neighborhood has the identical floor plan. S0 to spice things up a bit I designed a built-in storage unit. I found a guy who does wood working from my realtor. I drew him pictures to scale on graph paper with dimensions. He built most of it in his shop, assembled it on site, and we worked out a few details along the way. It uses all paint grade plywood and veneers so the cost was around $3,000. So really, about the same as a nice piece of furniture but with a bit more drama. He primed it and I painted it. I used an off-white eggshell finish paint for the base and glazed it. The glaze recipe: About a cup of Floetrol (made by Flood Company and available at Sherwin Williams and Home Depot or Lowes) and a teaspoon of acrylic craft paint. In this case I used Americana, Charcoal Grey from Michael’s craft store. The dark countertop is also painted. First, I beat it with a hammer and some screws and carved the edges with an Exacto knife. I painted it a light brown, streaked some red and yellow into it, and glazed it with Walnut color water based stain.
I found a few “before” photos.
