Wednesday 11 April 2012

Easy Peasy Paint Job

I thought i'd take advantage of my free time a couple of weekends ago and do something productive. There are a few pieces of super old bedroom furniture that have been sitting in our garage for as long as I can remember. My mum and dad inherited them from my Great Great Aunt (I think!) about 20 years ago and apart from being very grubby and a bit battered they were in surprisingly good condition when I finally managed to unearth them from their cobwebby corner. 


After discussing the whole idea of giving the bedside tables a new lease of life with a guy at work I discovered you could purchase what could possibly be the best 3 things EVER.


Spray Primer.     Spray Paint.     Spray Varnish.



Who knew?! … Anything that means pretty much no cleaning up time is a winner for me, so after a quick trip to B&Q and armed with my trusty aerosol cans and a few sheets of sandpaper I was good to go.

So here are my handy tips for painting wooden furniture:

1) Wash Wood - My tables were very grubby, so I gave them a quick wash down before doing anything, unless yours are of a similar state i'd say you can go ahead and skip this part!

2) Sand Wood - I went over the whole thing with a bit of standard sand paper just to smooth out any little chips and cracks in the old paint work. It's also meant to help the primer adhere to the wood better

3) Wash Wood - Wash down all the areas you're planning on spraying to get rid of any dust/grease/general grubbiness that might affect the paint job

4) Let it dry 

5) Prime Wood with handy spray primer - So simple! … Just follow the instructions on the can, mine said to hold the can 30cm away from the surface and spray in back/forth motion. Basically just keep the can moving!

I gave mine a couple of coats with white primer (I was going with a lightish overall colour, the primer came in a few different colours so i'd say it depends on your final colour as to what colour primer you'd go for.) 


It only took about 15 minutes between coats so really isn't very time consuming going for a couple! 

6) Let it Dry (Touch Dries in about 20 min)

7) Paint Wood with handy spray paint - I went with Rust-Oleum Slate Blue. As with the primer I gave mine a couple of coats, pretty much the same technique, just keep the can moving and make sure you get in all the gaps!

8) Let it Dry (Touch Dries in about 20 mins)

9) Varnish Wood with handy spray varnish - Same again! … Back and Forth, keep the can moving, couple of coats etc etc

10) Let it dry

DONE!

 I also bought some metallic gold spray paint for the drawer pulls which came out lovely and shiny!

The only problem I encountered is that after spraying one of the tables I realised i'd need another can of paint to do the 2nd, and on returning to B&Q they had sold out of my colour… So i currently have one beautifully finished bedside table and one who is still awaiting it's Slate Blue coat. A job for my day off next week!

I really do recommend this to anyone, it was about 10 times easier than I was expecting and the results were absolutely amazing! I'm so so happy with how it's turned out.




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