Painted Knife Block

I don't know why it never occurred to me to spruce up my knife block, it just didn't. I "inherited" this knife block (not this ACTUAL one, but one very similar. I forgot to take a before pic) from my husband's apartment stuff when we got married. I didn't think much of it, in fact I never gave it ANY thought at all. Until one day in blog land I saw that someone had painted their knife block in this pretty solid barn red. Well, I thought, it cant get any uglier, lets give it a go....

First I took the knives out and washed it really well....or so I thought. Then I started to sand the lacquer off and realized that there was a very heavy film of dirty grossness covering it. So I cleaned it with an SOS pad and this time it worked like a charm. After I got it really clean, I sanded it down, revealing a beautiful wood grain not previously able to be seen through the grime.

Then I took it out to my yard and gave it a first coat of cherry red spray paint. As any good spray painter knows, spray paint goes on best in layers. So about ten minutes later, I went out to give it another coat of paint and realized I liked it just the way it was, with that beautiful wood grain peeking through the red. I decided to leave it like that...I could always add paint later...and Im glad I did, I think it looks awesome. What do you think?