I have officially finished my first refinishing craft and I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself for not stopping half way through and saying "Let's just buy new furniture." There were a couple times I wanted to, like when I first began and sliced my finger open on steel wool, that was fun, I'll get to that in a second. So let's begin with the supplies I bought..and the supplies I returned. Let's just say me and the Home Depot paint guy on the weekends are on first names bases after this project.

My first trip to Home Depot, I walked in acting like I knew what I was doing. You know the saying "fake it till you make it" well that was me on my first trip. Me and Will (the paint guy at Home Depot) first met at this trip and I blew him off thinking I knew exactly what I was doing. I started with the basics..paint brushes (I only bought one, big mistake), steel wool, primer, 2 cans of spray paint color, and spray paint top coat and that was it. I went home and was talking to my mom on the phone about how I am starting my craft project and I asked her "Is the steel wool going to cut me?" And she was all like no silly its too thin to cut you. So I go outside to start sanding down the furniture with the steel wool, literally 5 seconds in (not an exaggeration), I cut my finger open with the steel wool. Being a nurse my first reaction isn't oh crap I cut my myself it was when was my last Tetanus and do I need stitches. The stitches thought was definitely not needed since it was like a paper cut except a little deeper and my last tetanus was in 2010 so I was covered there. This was the first time I thought "Lets just buy new furniture" but Brian stopped me by saying he will go to Wal-Mart and buy me some gloves, at the time I was like awh how sweet but when he came back with Taco Bell, I figured out his real motive for wanting to go to Wal-Mart. But none the less, I call my mother basically like what the hell mom I cut myself and she goes well what grade of steel wool did you buy? WHO KNEW THERE WERE DIFFERENT GRADES! And naturally I had bought the thickest and coarsest steel wool on the market (Grade 3) and I needed Grade 000. Good one.

But anyway, my lovely boyfriend went to Wal-Mart and got me gloves and grade 000 steel wool. I made him search the store because I have very small hands and those one size fits all gloves do not fit all hands. So I needed a size small and he comes back with these...

and says," I got these because I figured they would be extra absorbent." Hence the brand..good one babe. But they did do the trick and I managed to save my manicure (obviously very important ) and my finger from anymore cuts throughout the project.

 But moving on, I finally get the right steel wool and my gloves and I sand down my first chair and then clean it off with Windex, and I open the primer jar of paint and I found out I bought gray primer rather than white primer, another rookie mistake. But this ended up okay because the gray primer was light and made the metal look silver again so it was still easy to paint over the green. This is the chair primed

So once this dried, I went to spray paint the chair, this was a disaster for many reasons.
#1: Spray painted our back porch off white
#2: So much spray paint was wasted because of all the little holes in the metal (the reason for #1)
#3: After 2 cans the chair still wasn't completely spray painted and this kind of spray paint was $5 a can so that would be 3 cans per chair plus like 5 for the table. I'm not spending $85 on paint. This was the second time I thought we should just buy new furniture.

Somehow, I found the motivation (after a nap) to go back to Home Depot and keep doing this project. This time Will recognized me and I swallowed my pride and went through what happened. I returned the spray paint top coat I bought and bought a can of the clear top coat and a can of paint that was similar to the color of the spray paint. I also bought a variety pack of brushes. This trip to Home Depot was much more successful. I did have to go back the next day to get paint trays to pour the paint in and a canvas drop cloth but other than that I was good to go.

It did take much longer to hand paint everything but I'm happy with the outcome of the furniture and the money saved in my pocket from not buying new furniture. The whole project in total with returns cost me around $60 and the furniture is now as good as new.  Here is the before and after:

Given the after would look better if I raked the back porch and put some decorations out there and removed the canvas drop cloth from underneath the table, but like I said on my previous post I am moving July 1st and this seems pointless right now.

On Sunday, we went out on our friend Ian's boat with his fiance Christi down the Wakulla River. It was a fabulous time full of alligator searching and vegas bombs. Here are a few pictures of the day

Ian and Brian covered in sunscreen

Take one

Take two

Take three

It was the perfect start to the week. Nothing like spending the day with good friends and in the sun. Hope you all have a great Monday!

Hello World,

So I wanted to start off with explaining my title. I DON'T blog, like ever. I think I had a Xanga account in 9th grade when I was really tech savvy and had music playing in the background and everything. All that knowledge of the blogging world has left me, I have no idea what I'm doing and yet I woke up one day and decided I am going to write a blog about my life because I feel like it. And so here I am trying to figure out this whole blog thing, I am still unhappy with my layout or template (whatever it's called) and can't figure out how to move bars around and barely understand what I have done so far but it is a work in progress and one day I will get it down.

But anyway,  here I am...blogging. Who woulda thought? Not my mom, that's for sure. My mom and sister are both creative and can pretty much make a bouquet of flowers out of a burlap sack, I would instead go to a flower shop and buy a bouquet and have them wrap it with burlap. I've always been that way, until recently. Now I have this creative itch (mainly due to my obsession with Pinterest). I have even begun refinishing some old patio furniture Brian's (my boyfriend) mom gave us. I will post photos once it is finished, it has been postponed because of rain (Thanks tropical storm Andrea). But now I'm addicted to blogs that refinish furniture, all I want to do is thrift shop and refinish things. Unfortunately, I'm moving in a month to a new townhouse so I am having to put a lot of my refinishing dreams on hold until I find out what I need to put in this new place. Booo.

Now that I've explained why I am blogging let me tell you a little about me. I value my family above everything else. My parents have been married for 35 years and I have an older brother, Adam, and sister, Ashley. I'm the baby of the family and I'm also an oops baby. I like to think I am an oops that came at the right time (we are all 3 years apart). But I was definitely an oops because my mom cried for 2 weeks when she found out she was pregnant with me. Now she says "she wouldn't trade me for the world"..typical mother response. I live in Tallahassee, Florida with my boyfriend, Brian, and our 90 pound American bulldog, Izzy, and 10 pound pomeranian-yorkie (porkie as I like to say), Ryder. Izzy is originally Brian's and Ryder originally mine, but now that we share bills I consider them "ours". I am very sarcastic and sensitive at the same time. I have the biggest sweet tooth around and love wine of any kind. In the past year, my happiness and contentment with life has increased significantly and I just like to have a good time whether its going out or eating popcorn on my couch with Brian. I love this life I'm living and am excited for whats to come

                                                       

My babies Ryder and Izzy

 Adam, Ashley and Me

Brian

That's all for now, until next time,

B