DIY for beginners...

Begin: Garage sale TV Cabinet
Step 1: get the beast home... make quick trip to house to drop off back seat of the van and rearrange kids, cram giant thing into the back of said van and drive home with the hatch-back wide open (at about 5 miles-per-hour) wait for husband to get home because giant thing is too heavy and too wedged in the car to get out alone.
Wait 4 days to put back seat back into the van and complicate every driving trip in the mean-time.

Step 2: sand and prime with this magical stuff

Step 3: Add surprise color to areas intended to be distressed,
then spread small amount of petrolem jelly over said areas when dry to help with the distressing

Let boys 'help'

Commend Middle Monkey for catching the mess made by Little Monkey while it was still wet.
Who needs an ALL white car, anyway? And p.s., YAY for wet wipes.

Step 4: Paint top color. ( It helps to take a few days to ponder the universe and
every color there-in before actually selecting a color)
I did three coats to get good coverage.
THEN, when dry, Sand lightly where the color is hiding underneath.
The jelly made the topcoat paint peel, and I don't know if I would recommend this method or not.
It made the sanding go quickly, but it was far less predictable.

Grapes came home from school and told me it just looked old now. She is not a fan.
I can't decide what I think. I still intend to topcoat with poly-acrylic,
but I have to decide if this is the end state of distressing first.

 The decision is distressing me.
Your thoughts?