Step to the Stool

Here is an example of a project that took way, way more steps than originally intended. 

Lucky has a step stool next to her bed that she uses to get in and out of her new big girl bed.  The step stool looked like this:

Bright White.  It was a little stark for my liking in this room, so I decided to spray paint it.  The color I wanted to use: orange.  Not construction worker orange.  More like tangerine orange or even a rusty orange, or orange like the orange of the blanket on the foot of her bed:

Here is what I found to be true:  There are not many orange spray paint options.  I went with Rustoleum's Real Orange.  (I've recently found out (from a blogger named Mandi) that Krylon offers colors that are only available regionally, but can be ordered at Sherwin Williams stores locally.  I like the tangerine color from this post by Mandi at Vintage Revivals.)

Here is what I ended up with after 2 coats of orange spray paint: 

I'm sorry if I just damaged your eyeballs.  It was bad.  Orange to the Extreme.  Construction Worker Orange = Huge Failure. 

Boo to orange spray paints that don't come in practical orange colors.  What to do?  Spray over it in brown was one option.  I thought about it for a few minutes and remembered my glaze from this post, so here is what I used:

Here is a 'during' photo:

Here is a close-up:

Here it is after a layer of polyacrylic was added to protect the glaze:

Here it is in Lucky's room...ready for stepping action:

(Note the still white step stool interior.  It's only noticeable with flash from the camera, so I'm not too worried about it.  I may add a little brown glaze to tone down the brightness of it next time I get the glaze out.)

I didn't love it at first, but it's growing on me.  It's better in person than the pictures show, but you have to trust me on that:).  I love that you can see the brush strokes...it almost looks like wood grain.  And I got to use my glaze for the first time, and it was really pretty easy.  I didn't do much wiping, just lots of brushing which meant that my dry time was long.  But I was patient, and now we have a loverly, aged looking step stool that blends in with the overall feel of the room.  I like to think that I turned lemons oranges into lemonade OJ!