BROOKE BLOGS?

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