one of the most effective ways to embarrass the little joneses is to pull over at the curb and load a neighbor’s trash into the station wagon.  these shelves were just too good to pass up, and so, hazard lights a-flashing, we slowly made our way the last three blocks home with them – the shelves, not the little joneses! - dangling out the back.  since i’ve been dying to give pratt & lambert’s whirlpool blue (#22.16) a spin, and the end of my blue willow jag seems nowhere in sight…here is the before and after:

after rust-o-leum metal primer, they were base-coated with benjamin moore’s linen white, stenciled, and then topped with a little raw umber tinted glaze.  removing the rust would have been the textbook approach, but i kind of like the texture of the little rust “blossoms” and the way they catch the glaze.