Last of the Oak

Our house was built in 1986.  We moved into the house in 1998 and have been updating it each and every year somehow or another.  Of course, every piece of wood in the house is/has been oak...you know, the total "Eighties Oak."  We have either replaced or painted the oak except for this one last remaining piece.

Do you see the oak...on the top of that small partitioning wall?  Actually, we hope to one day knock that wall out entirely because we don't see the purpose of it.  However, since that project isn't in the near future, I thought the next best thing would be to paint it.  

For years I had 2 plants sitting on the shelf and unfortunately, over those years we have incurred some serious damage to the wood.  Nice, huh?  Some of the wood was even rotten so my initial idea of staining the wood was out of the question.  

The first thing I did was pull out the orbital sander.  I sanded off most of the lacquer and applied one coat of Kilz primer.  After priming it, I added 2 coats of white paint I use for the other trimmings around the house.  Ahhh....so much better.  This is what Mark and I like to call a "Why-didn't-I-do-this-a-long-time-ago" project.

For now I have placed one of the planters (not the one that did all the damage) back on top.  Not sure if it'll stay there or not.  I almost want to just leave it plain and not put anything on top.  We'll see...