Paint Color: Buckeye Red by Martha Stewart

I had washed my hands of the baby gate and moved on with life until I came across a Barn Door Baby Gate tutorial on Pinterest.  I showed the DIY gate to STC – not completely confident that this could be recreated, but he took the instructions and made his way to Home Depot.

The tutorial advises a DIY-er to purchase a variety of wood boards.  Taylor came home with pre-finished white wood boards which completely stripped me of my original vision of a stained gate.  Lesson: do not buy pre-finished white boards.

As rookies, we didn’t consider the possibility of sinking the screws so I covered the nail heads with putty as best I could.  We nixed the “X” crossing the gate door due to the sheer weight of the baby gate.  It received a good sanding and one coat of red paint sealed with a vintage glaze.  That was ugly to say the least.  A few hours later it received another sanding and an application or two of Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint in “Old White”.  I had every intention of sealing the chalk paint with clear wax, followed by a dark wax to give it that rustic look.  All plans were sidetracked by one crazy summer and a temporary relocation to New York City.

Just this past week, I was looking out our poor, forgotten gate.  It had seen better days, the chalk paint was fading in places where a wax would have prevented.  It would need a new coat of paint and dedication to wax before I could finally put on the accessories I purchased over a year ago.  I whipped out my new favorite color, Watery by Home Decorator’s Collection, and brushed on 2 coats [during nap time!].  It is the faintest blue, but preferable to plain white. I took my black “barn” accessories and sprayed them with Rust-oleum’s Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint.