Revisiting the Salvaged Shutter

When I look at an old piece of architectural salvage and its surface resembles a tossed-on coating of brightly colored potato chips, it seems like it would be a fun job to scrape away the old paint. But then in reality, when those first big, peely chips are off, more and more peely edges curl up, and it takes more and more elbow grease to get to the point where the piece is ready for new paint. I had initially though that this shutter had enough paint on it that it would look "distressed" to the perfect degree when I'd just taken off those first, curly paint pieces. After scraping off everything that became loose, there wasn't much paint left on, at all. It would need to be repainted for my headboard plans.
Actual paint color MUCH lighter than in this photo
So I stopped in at a hardware store for some paint. I didn't want a whole gallon; what did they have in a smaller size? Rustoleum. Made for metal, and oil-based. I knew it would be stupid to settle for it, but I did, in my eagerness to get painting!
I bought the darker of the two shades of grey. Mistake! It didn't cover well, it was mega-streaky, and the dark grey turned out to be pretty light. At least, not the color of my repurposed-shutter dreams.
Actual paint color MUCH darker than in this photo
 So I went to another hardware store and did the whole paint-chip-custom-mix route, and got a quart of the color, finish and latex base that I wanted. And then I used approximately one-one hundredth of the can to paint the whole shutter. I should have just bought one of those little bottles they sell for people to test out a patch on the wall.
Live and learn.
Without actually mounting the shutter above the bed the way I originally intended (hanging from chains which would serve as "visual bedposts",) I propped it here so I could think through the mounting process. 
Now I can't decide if this shutter-headboard thing is a good idea, or rather ridiculous.

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