Shabby Chic Aquarium Stand

Animal lover. That's me. All kinds of animals. In my lifetime, I have had pet cats, dogs, fish, crabs, snails, lizards, turtles, and even a hedgehog. Animals just fascinate me. So you'll probably read a lot on my blog in the future about my cats, turtles, and my three different aquariums. 
Today I'm focusing on my saltwater aquarium. I started it back in 2010. I was so enchanted by snorkeling, watching reef tanks, and visiting the National Aquarium. I could literally sit for hours staring at a reef. There are so many tiny little things going on that the average eye would miss. Like tiny little hermit crabs scavenging for food, or the tentacles of a coral blowing in the current, or copepods crawling over live rock, or a fan worm slowly coming out of its tube and opening up to show its beautiful colors. There's just so much to look at!
So after I graduated from college I bought a used 40 gallon saltwater set up off of Craigslist. 

I painted the tank stand brown to match all of my bedroom furniture (unfortunately I can't find a good picture of this!) and then started the long process of setting up and cycling the tank. Fast forward a year and a half, and it was time to move. I moved to a small townhouse and it just didn't make sense to set up the 40 gallon tank there. So I moved as much as I could into a 20 gallon tank. This wasn't the ideal situation because it meant doing without some important equipment and cutting my amount of live rock significantly (if any of you know reef tanks, you see my problem). 
Miraculously my two little clownfish have survived in the 20 gallon tank for about a year and a half now. When we moved into our new house, we decided to keep them in the 20 gallon until I could repaint the tank stand to match our current decor. With unpacking and many projects going on, it's taken a little while to get to, but we've finally started! Yay!!!
So this isn't a fully completed project (and will take some time since I have to recycle all of my old rocks), but I wanted to show off my tank stand's paint job!
Hubby got a belt sander for Christmas, so he decided to try it out. It gouged it up a lot, but I kind of like the distressed look it gave it. 

Then I gave it three coats of paint..

We plan on putting in the office/craft room, which is currently full of Ikea furniture, so I wanted it to match in color. Ikea furniture is a creamy white, so I knew I couldn't just go buy any old white paint. Thankfully, after a quick search on Pinterest, I found that Young House Love did all the color matching work for me! Thanks John and Sherry!!!

And here she is in all her painted glory!

I'm contemplating whether or not I want to add some ORB knobs. And maybe distress some of the edges. What do you think?