Christmas Project #2 - FINISHED

I've told a few people about this project, but here's a full description of what I did:

Last weekend, I attended several Holiday Bazaars with Eric's family.  We had a great time hopping around to various places, finding treasures.  One item I stumbled upon was an old window.  Judging by the wood and the paint and the glass used for the windows, I would say this is from a very old house.  I decided that I wanted this window for my house - for decoration.  It's old.  It's rustic.  I figured I could find the perfect place in my house for it.  So I bought it.....and then Eric's grandma got mad at me because she had planned on sneaking the purchase when I wasn't looking (she knew I had my eye on it) for a Christmas present.  So we tore up my check and she wrote a new one, and the window was still mine.  ;) 

So I brought the window home and decided it needed to go up above the fireplace.  Perfect location.  So We hung it up and instantly decided it did NOT go there.  Or, at least painted as it was.  It was a light cream color, as are my walls in the living room.  It totally blended right in and I wanted it to POP.  So it came back down and we happened to have some paint out in the garage.  So the project began.

Here is the original window (which, by this point, I had determined it was actually half of a door....but I needed it to be a window, so it's a window) with the paint it had on it when I made the purchase.

 Took it out to the garage where I sanded it down.

 The paint we had in the garage was brown, so I decided to just go with that instead of spending money on a new can.  Plus, brown would go well with the cream colored walls and carpet.

 I'm not a big painter, so I don't know the rules on painting this way or that, or how many layers, or how thick of layers to do.  So I just slapped some on and called it good.  It was going to have a rustic look anyway, so perfect painting was far from my mind.  In fact, the more imperfections, the better!

Once the entire thing was painted, I had to let it dry.  Once it was dry, it was time to distress it all over again.  So I took the sandpaper off of the sander and started sanding away, by hand, adding emphasis in some areas.

 Here is the finished product - please excuse the reflection of the Christmas tree!

 I put it back above the fireplace, though it's sort of outdone right now by all of the Christmas decorations that are up. 

 Some detail shots.

Overall, I love it.  I think once all the Christmas stuff is taken down, I will try to find some other items that can go up there with it, to give it sort of a mood or theme.