House in the Heights: Haute Antlers

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Haute Antlers

Last weekend, I went "shopping" in my parent's basement. Say what? Most of you don't know my parents, but those of you that do know that the basement is my dad's (and the dog's) domain. It's filled with wildlife prints, a bar and beer fridge, and yes, antlers.

Which is exactly what I was there for. Antlers are hot right now, and lucky for me, my dad has a ton of them that he was willing to donate to the cause.

My selection. And this is just what he had in the house! He said that he could bring more from his hunting camp. Um...yes, please!

Why did I want antlers, you ask? Duh, so I could spray paint them! Have you not caught on yet?! Antlers are cool. They're sculptural, you can paint them any color you like, or just leave them natural. I can think of a million places that I could use them. And mine turned out pretty fab, if I do say so myself!

This project was about as easy as it gets. I spray painted the whole thing off-white and allowed that to dry. Then I went back and taped off the tips, covered the rest in a grocery store bag and spray painted gold. I painted the skull part (Ew, that sounds so gross! It really wasn't. I mean these antlers were dated 1984, which is almost as old as I am. It's not like there was anything gross left) by hand with Martha Stewart's liquid gold leaf craft paint, since it was too difficult to tape off.

Side note: This was the first time I used the Martha paint. It was amazing. I'm actively resisting the urge to paint everything in sight.

It makes a nice little addition to our family room bookshelves, don't you think?

And a wide shot, so you can see the entertainment center area. I like how they stand out on the red walls.

Never one to quit while I'm ahead, I decided that my first set of antlers worked out so well that I would paint one more for the living room. This room has a much cooler color palette, of dark purple and gray, with turquoise accents.

So this time, I decided to paint my antler turquoise, and use silver spray paint in the tips. I added a stripe of black craft paint to define the line between turquoise and silver.

Another home run in my book! However I had some trouble deciding where the antler should live for the time being.

I tried it on a little accent table.....It looked great!

And then in one of the speaker stands that flank our TV stand....also looked good in there! I imagine layering some other objects behind it, if that were to be its final resting place.