OKAY SO PAINT.

This post was going to be more interesting, but the thingy I'm making is still In Production so I'm going to talk about paint.

Acrylic is going to soak right into wood unless you prime it.  So look for legit house paint (sometimes they have primer added, already), and even then, you're going to need a couple coats. 

Every home improvement store has an oopsie section, for when they screw up mixing for a customer and they want to get rid of it for super cheap.  Unfortunately, most of the paint there is a shade of baby poop.  So go check, and check often, and check lots of hardware stores.  Eventually you'll find one that isn't baby poop or fluorescent orange or khaki... unless you like baby poop walls or fluorescent orange walls or khaki walls, hey, I'm not judging.  I've found some epic shades of blue.