You ask; You receive

Woah!  I was NOT prepared for that.  My inbox was inundated with e-mails, and you had so many requests in your comments.  How could I NOT tell you how I did it?  Thank you for all your positive remarks.  You’re all so nice.

Here we go.

Start out with a piece of furniture covered in years of build-up.  I bought this TSP degreaser, and it worked like. a. charm.  It was $6.00 at my grocery store.

I walked into the paint store and told my paint guy, “I don’t want to do anything to this piece of furniture.  I don’t want to sand it at ALL.”  He said, “You’re lazy.”  Not really.  He told me to buy this stuff.  It’s got a pretty rough surface to it so that it can grip the paint.

Then, (shocker here) I turned to my handy dandy Ben Moore Low Lustre Metal and Wood paint.  The SAME quart that I used on this and these. (Note-this is not the actual can I used.  This is a different color.)

I have two secret weapons.  The first is my paint (swear by it).  The second is a foam roller.  I buy the foam rollers at Wal-Mart for a couple of bucks.  I cut in the trim and curves with cheapo foam brushes from Hobby Lobby, then I roll on all the flat surfaces with the foam roller. Between the paint (which smooths out better) and the roller, there are no streaks, brush strokes, etc.  It looks like it’s been sprayed on.

I’m quite careful about checking for coverage and lines as I go, but I don’t do anything special outside of that.  I just keep rolling lighter and lighter until it’s completely smooth.

Just in case you’re doubting the smoothness this provides.  Nice, right?

So…just to be clear.  I did NOT sand this thing.  I wiped it down really well with TSP cleaner, used the special primer (also with a foam roller), and painted a couple of coats of black paint on it.  That’s it.  No special finish over it.

I almost forgot.  I purchased the hardware at Lowes.  The hardest part about this project?  Waiting for it to dry!