Make It POP Like a Peacock

When I put up the pegboard above my desk last week I stepped back to take a look, squinted my eyes to imagine it with crisply painted white shelves, and promptly decided that the whole thing looked a little “blah.”

I thought that maybe painting the shelves a fun color would be an easy way to add a little pizzazz (especially since I hadn’t yet painted them). But then blogging buddy and frequent commenter Kindra chimed in with a stroke of genius: why not paint the pegboard?

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Mama likey. But what color to paint it? Kindra suggested the color of a peacock’s neck and, once again, I decided Kindra was a genius. This isn’t the first time I’ve been inspired by a reader. My Aunt Julie once left a comment suggesting the use of a painter’s dropcloth as a rug in my living room and I totally ran with it (see that post here). So keep the great ideas coming, people. You blog readers are a wealth of knowledge and inspiration!

So, once I decided to paint the pegboard “the color of the peacock’s neck,” I was tasked with figuring out how to translate that into an actual paint color. I’m kind of over picking out colors from paint companies. I just wasn’t feeling it this week. So I decided to go back to my oldie-but-goodie method of just recklessly mixing colors in a tupperware container until I like what I see. I’ve painted several pieces of furniture using this method and it hasn’t failed me yet. The ability to tweak the color if I don’t like what I see is very empowering. I knew I wanted the color to be a deep blue green, so I gathered all my blue and green paints on the kitchen counter along with a leftover cottage cheese container to mix it all up in.

I started out with a healthy dose of grass green (left over from painting my sewing desk) and what was left of my navy blue (another shade I mixed up myself for the inside of the drawer in my mustard coffee table).

Things were already looking a whole lot richer once I stirred it up. I think that’s a putty stick I was using to stir. I found it in my drawer of painting supplies and it seemed like a good tool to use.

Next I added another shade of blue (left over from the dresser and armoire upstairs).

A quick stir and things were looking quite spiffy, but something was still missing.

So I gave it a squeeze of black acrylic (yes, I mix types and finishes of paint with reckless abandon).

At this point I was really feeling hopeful. Look how much deeper and richer it is than the grass green I started out with.

All that mixing happened after dark, which is never a good time to judge a paint color. So I painted a swatch on the pegboard that night but waited until the next morning to judge it. In the light of day it seemed just a smidge too green for me. I wanted more blue.

So I went back to the kitchen and added about half a sample pot of mistint pale aqua I picked up for a dollar on one of my many trips to Lowe’s (I like to pick up mistints when I’m there for cases exactly such as this).

The difference is subtle, but I liked it.

After painting a little swatch I was so satisfied I went ahead and covered the whole thing with two and a half coats. The nice thing about working with flat paint is that if things are looking a little sketchy after only two coats you can go in and touch up the problem areas without doing a formal third coat. I’m lazy, so I like it this way.

I’m thrilled with the color. It reads in real life as a very deep, complicated green. Like Kermit the Frog when he ran out of Prozac. It’s a nice contrast to the green undertones on the wall and the color of the sewing desk (which is painted the same grass green I used as a base for this color).

Now that I’ve got the “pizzazz” situation under control, the next step is to finally add some function to this thing. I had lumber cut for shelves almost two weeks ago but forgot to grab brackets, then when I went back to pick them up I realized Lowe’s didn’t carry pegboard shelf brackets in the size I needed. So I turned to the internet, where I was able to order a dozen 12″ brackets for about $25 after shipping. They came in yesterday and I was so excited! That is, until I realized my shelves were 1″x10″ (which is actually 1″x9.25″ in real life). What was I thinking? I tell ya, my brain has been completely turned to mush lately. I even missed an appointment with my doctor yesterday because I could have sworn it was scheduled for today (luckily they were able to reschedule me for today). As if the sizing situation weren’t bad enough, the brackets allow the shelves to slope forward. A pencil rolls right off. So I’ve got to either 1) buy more lumber in the correct size (but it will still be a little short because of the way lumber is dimensioned), or 2) find a way to add just over two inches to the width of the shelves. I’m thinking gluing a length of 1×2 trim to each is the way to go, and that remaining quarter inch will just have to resolve itself. As for the sloping issue, maybe I could place something under each of the brackets to force the bottom of each up a little? Or use some of those locking plastic pieces I made fun of the other day to make sure the top of each bracket rests snug against the pegboard? Suggestions are welcome. I’m soooo over trying to figure this out on my own.

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