Ikea Lack Lookalike?

I’ve been in the mood to build lately.  Yesterday I finished an Ikea Lack inspired bookshelf from the plans on the Ana White site.

I have to say, of everything that I’ve made so far, this is my favorite. It was the most fun to build, and I finished it, start to finished, in about 8 hours. And that includes painting and dry time. And I love the color. Its the banana yellow by Benjamin Moore from the Natura range.

I chopped and sanded everything in the garage, then assembled inside because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to move this thing too far on my own.

I used 2 drills to speed up the process; one with a countersink drill bit, and the other with a square head driver.

I used it initially because I was using Kreg screws, but I found that the square head works well with phillips head screws too.

Assembly was quick.

I drilled my holes as I went along because I attached each shelf  to the sides in the back first,

then checked to make sure everything was level, and that all of my corners were square before attaching the shelves to the front sides.

Then I painted her yellow, and call her my sunshine. It makes me happy just looking at it. It’s a bright, creamy yellow, so it isn’t overpowering. 2 coats of paint, light sanding, and 2 coats of poly.

Right now, I’m debating whether or not I want to build a twin, or if instead I’ll make a table to sit behind my Kivik. I’m leaning toward the latter.

Talk to you in the next one!

Benjamin Moore Natura Meets Elle’s Dining Room Table

I’ve been exploring my zero VOC paint options lately. To date, I’ve only tried Mythic paint on my son’s bed and toybox, and the Benjamin Moore Natura range for my dining room table.

I have to say, of the 2, the Natura is my favorite. The consistency is thick, and I find that I don’t get the paint drips that I got with the Mythic paint, but it also spreads so nicely. There’s almost no odor at all. The brush strokes that I did see were minor.

I bought 3 pints. One pint of 3 colors; kendall charcoal, banana yellow, and chantilly lace. For the table I used the kendall charcoal.

My only complaint is that the sticker on the front of the can looks like something I could print out on a low quality desktop printer, and stick on with an Elmer's glue stick. But then, maybe that’s the company’s effort to be more “green.” But then again, it’s what’s on the inside that matters most, right? And inside, the stuff is good.

The picture above was taken after one coat of the Zinsser water based primer, and one coat of the paint. I followed up with a second second coat, and a two coats of Minwax polyacrylic. The color ended up being a rich, cool grey. I love it! And that is all, for now.

Talk to you in the next one!